33 Sam Harris Quotes for You to Enjoy

Sam Harris

American Author

Born: Apr 9, 1967

Life People Religion Science World You

Related authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald Frederick Douglass Helen Keller Henry David Thoreau Joyce Meyer Mark Twain Og Mandino Zig Ziglar

Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle. Sam Harris

World Matter Live Philosophy Atheism Simply Obvious Principle Overlooked Deny Refusal Unfortunately Which View Even

Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person's thoughts. Sam Harris

Love Loneliness Thoughts Emotions Enjoy Thinking Others Our Everything Pleasure Eat Purpose Foods Feel Like Altering Read Another Friendships Person Form Fleeting Certain Avoid Specific Presence Consciousness Tongues

Tolerance, openness to argument, openness to self-doubt, willingness to see other people's points of view - these are very liberal and enlightened values that people are right to hold, but we can't allow them to delude us to the point where we can't recognise people who are needlessly perpetrating human misery. Sam Harris

People Values Argument Tolerance Other Liberal Recognise Willingness See Point Misery Points Allow Delude Openness Self-Doubt Very Human Where Hold Them Us View Who Right Enlightened

Almost all our suffering is the product of our thoughts. We spend nearly every moment of our lives lost in thought, and hostage to the character of those thoughts. You can break this spell, but it takes training just like it takes training to defend yourself against a physical assault. Sam Harris

Character Thoughts You Suffering Yourself Training Thought Lost Every Spell Our Spend Our Lives Those Physical Hostage Takes Almost Almost All Like Just Break Against Product Moment Assault Lives Nearly Defend

Science is the most durable and nondivisive way of thinking about the human circumstance. It transcends cultural, national, and political boundaries. You don't have American science versus Canadian science versus Japanese science. Sam Harris

You Science Political National Thinking Way Circumstance About Boundaries Most Cultural Versus Canadian American Durable Human Transcends Japanese

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

My concern with religion is that it allows us by the millions to believe what only lunatics or idiots could believe on their own. That's not to say that all religious people are lunatics or idiots. It's anything but that. Sam Harris

Religion People Own Believe Say Religious Religious People Only Could Concern Idiots Anything Us Lunatics Millions

Human well-being is not a random phenomenon. It depends on many factors - ranging from genetics and neurobiology to sociology and economics. But, clearly, there are scientific truths to be known about how we can flourish in this world. Wherever we can have an impact on the well-being of others, questions of morality apply. Sam Harris

World Random Economics Others Impact About Morality Factors Clearly Genetics Known Well-Being Scientific How Questions Truths Human Depends Wherever Many Flourish Apply Sociology Phenomenon

As a parent, it's my responsibility to equip my child to do this - to grieve when grief is necessary and to realize that life is still profoundly beautiful and worth living despite the fact that we inevitably lose one another and that life ends, and we don't know what happens after death. Sam Harris

Life Beautiful Death Grief Worth Responsibility Lose Living Despite Worth Living Parent Fact Know Another Equip Inevitably Still Child Ends After Happens Grieve Realize Necessary Profoundly

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

People Relax Believe Every Other Our Our Lives Evidence Willing Religious Religious Belief Totally Rely Area Most Around Subject Them Organize Standards Belief Ludicrous Lives

We have Christians against Muslims against Jews, and no matter how liberal your theology, merely identifying yourself as a Christian or a Jew lends tacit validity to this status quo. People have morally identified with a subset of humanity rather than with humanity as a whole. Sam Harris

Yourself Humanity People Matter Christian Jews Liberal Validity Muslims Status Status Quo Tacit Morally Rather Merely Identified Identifying How Than Quo Against Lends Theology Your Whole Jew Christians

I think there are universal principles that we should want to understand, but that are not necessarily good for us. We could recognise universal propensities which current cultures can't fully eradicate, which we would want to eradicate if we could. Let's say, a tendency for tribal violence. Or racism. Sam Harris

Spiritual life can certainly follow the pattern one sees in the fake martial arts, with most teachers making nebulous and magical claims that never get tested, while their students derange themselves with weird ideas, empty rituals, and other affectations. Sam Harris

Life Spiritual Other Claims Follow Martial Martial Arts Magical Spiritual Life Sees Rituals Never Students Weird Ideas Most Empty Fake Making Tested Get Arts While Pattern Themselves Teachers Certainly

There must be right and wrong answers to questions of morality and values that potentially fall within the purview of science. On this view, some people and cultures will be right (to a greater or lesser degree), and some will be wrong, with respect to what they deem important in life. Sam Harris

Life Respect Science People Will Values Degree Some People Important Fall Must Some Morality Potentially Wrong Greater Within Answers Cultures Questions View Deem Lesser Right Right And Wrong

The moment we realize that the only things we can intelligibly value are actual and potential changes in the experience of conscious beings, we can think about a landscape of such changes - where the peaks correspond to the greatest possible well-being and the valleys correspond to the lowest depths of suffering. Sam Harris

Suffering Experience Value Think Changes Valleys Possible Correspond About Only Potential Well-Being Greatest Where Realize Depths Landscape Lowest Moment Beings Actual Conscious Peaks Things

We're right to say that a culture that can't tolerate free speech is... there are a wide range of positive human experiences that are not available in that culture. And we're right to want those experiences. Sam Harris

Positive Culture Free Free Speech Say Range Those Human Want Experiences Available Tolerate Right Wide Wide Range Speech

Many of my fellow atheists consider all talk of 'spirituality' or 'mysticism' to be synonymous with mental illness, conscious fraud, or self-deception. I have argued elsewhere that this is a problem - because millions of people have had experiences for which 'spiritual' and 'mystical' seem the only terms available. Sam Harris

Spiritual People Problem Spirituality Elsewhere Consider Synonymous Fraud Atheists Seem Mental Mental Illness Only Mystical Argued Mysticism Had Self-Deception Talk Terms Fellow Because Experiences Which Available Many Illness Conscious Millions Millions Of People

Any conception of human well-being you could plausibly have, the Taliban patently fails to maximize it. Sam Harris

You Could Fails Taliban Conception Well-Being Patently Maximize Any Human

Science, in the broadest sense, includes all reasonable claims to knowledge about ourselves and the world. Sam Harris

Knowledge Science World Sense Claims Ourselves About Reasonable

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

To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we're deluding ourselves with euphemisms. We're talking about Islam being a religion of peace that's been hijacked by extremists. If ever there were a religion that's not a religion of peace, it is Islam. Sam Harris

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