Sam Harris Quotes

• One of the great responsibilities we have as a society is to educate ourselves, along with the next generation, about which substances are worth ingesting, and for what purpose, and which are not.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Educate, Worth

• One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Surely, Richest

• On the subject of religious belief, we relax standards of reasonableness and evidence that we rely on in every other area of our lives. We relax so totally that people believe the most ludicrous propositions, and are willing to organize their lives around them.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Belief

  Tags in Propositions, Religious

• Nothing guarantees that reasonable people will agree about everything, of course, but the unreasonable are certain to be divided by their dogmas. It is time we recognized that this spirit of mutual inquiry, which is the foundation of all real science, is the very antithesis of religious faith.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mutual, Recognized

• Nearly half of the American population is eagerly anticipating the end of the world. This dewy-eyed nihilism provides absolutely no incentive to build a sustainable civilization. Many of these people are lunatics, but they are not the lunatic fringe.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Nearly, Eagerly

• Muslim moderates, wherever they are, must be given every tool necessary to win a war of ideas with their co-religionists. Otherwise, we will have to win some very terrible wars in the future.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Muslim, Terrible

• Most people believe that the Creator of the universe wrote (or dictated) one of their books. Unfortunately, there are many books that pretend to divine authorship, and each makes incompatible claims about how we all must live.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Creator, Universe

• Morality must relate, at some level, to the well-being of conscious creatures. If there are more and less effective ways for us to seek happiness and to avoid misery in this world – and there clearly are – then there are right and wrong answers to questions of morality.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Morality, Creatures

• Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds – and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Experience

  Tags in Existence, Suffering

• Many scientists have been drawn to Buddhism out of a sense that the Western tradition has delivered an impoverished conception of basic, human sanity. In the West, if you speak to yourself out loud all day long, you are considered crazy. But speaking to yourself silently – thinking incessantly – is considered perfectly normal.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Sanity, Delivered

• It is still fashionable to believe that how you organize yourself religiously in this life may matter for eternity. Unless we can erode the prestige of that kind of thinking, we’re not going to be able to undermine these divisions in our world.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Thinking, Organize

• It is easy to see what many people, women especially, admire about Sarah Palin. Here is a mother of five who can see the bright side of having a child with Down syndrome and still find the time and energy to govern the state of Alaska.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Bright, Admire

• In my experience with print journalists, the distinction between remarks being uttered on- or off-the-record is held sacrosanct, but the distinction between truth and falsity sometimes isn’t.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Print, Distinction

• I was actually already doing my Ph.D. in neuroscience when September 11 happened. ‘The End Of Faith’ is essentially what September 11 did to my intellectual career at that moment.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Actually, Happened

• I don’t think there’s an interesting boundary between philosophy and science. Science is totally beholden to philosophy. There are philosophical assumptions in science and there’s no way to get around that.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Boundary, Totally

• I consistently encounter people in academic settings and scientists and journalists who feel that you can’t say that anyone is wrong in any deep sense about morality, or with regard to what they value in life. I think this doubt about the application of science and reason to questions of value is really quite dangerous.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Scientists, Journalists

• The usefulness of religion – the fact that it gives life meaning, that it makes people feel good – is not an argument for the truth of any religious doctrine. It’s not an argument that it’s reasonable to believe that Jesus really was born of a virgin or that the Bible is the perfect word of the creator of the universe.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Reasonable, Religious

• Science does not limit itself merely to what is currently verifiable. But it is interested in questions that are potentially verifiable (or, rather, falsifiable).

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Potentially, Interested

• Most seem to think that while a person may not be responsible for the opportunities he gets in life, each is entirely responsible for what he makes of these opportunities.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Opportunities, While

• It is difficult to think of anything more important than providing the best education possible for our children. They will develop the next technologies, medical cures, and global industries, while mitigating their unintended effects, or they will fail to do these things and consign us all to oblivion.

  Sam Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Effects, Providing

Sam Harris (94)

Birth:	1967
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Neuroscientist, Author, Philosopher

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