Quotessence
Home / Authors / Sam Harris
Sam Harris

Sam Harris Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleWorldReligionBelieveHumansReligiousIfsAtheismAtheistReasonThinkingBeliefEvidenceProblemHuman BeingsShouldFactsMoralitySufferingWay

Famous Sam Harris Quotes

“Your capacity to be offended, isn’t something that I or anyone else needs to respect. Your capacity to be offended isn’t something you should respect, in fact, it’s something you should be on your guard for, perhaps more than any other property of your mind. This feeling can mislead you. If you care about justice (and you absolutely should) you should care about facts and the ability to discuss them openly. Justice requires contact with reality. It simply isn’t the case, it cannot be the case, that the most pressing claims on our sense of justice need come from those who claim to be most offended by conversation itself. So I’m going to speak in the language of facts now, insofar as we know them, all the while knowing that these facts run very much counter to most peoples’ assumptions. (ep #207 Waking Up podcast)”

FactsReasoningSam Harris
Author:Sam Harris
Create image

“The only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their beliefs modified by new facts. Only openness to evidence and argument will secure a common world for us.”

WorldWayHumansFactsBeliefHuman BeingsCommonEvidenceArgumentSecureWillingnessOpennessPermit
Book:The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
Create image

“Death is, in some ways, unacceptable. It's just an astonishing fact of our being here that we die; but I think worse than that is if we live long enough, we lose everyone we love in this world. I mean people die and disappear, and we're left with this stark mystery: just the sheer not knowing of what happened to them.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldWayMeanLongEnoughFactsDiesLeftLosesKnowingHappenedMysteryThis WorldDisappearNot KnowingSheerAstonishingStarksMean People
Author:Sam Harris
Create image

“According to the most common interpretation of biblical prophecy, Jesus will return only after things have gone horribly awry. Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency.”

IfsWorldShouldBelieveEndsFactsGovernmentWould BeJesusCommonHalfMoralGoneImagineReturnIntellectualConsequencePopulationSignificantGloriousInterpretationBiblicalProphecyComponentsEmergencies
Author:Sam Harris
Create image

“In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.”

PeopleNeedsShouldStillsFactsBeliefTermReligiousDoubtAliveAtheismAtheistNoiseAliensReasonableGalaxyReligious BeliefCattleAlchemistChristian AtheistAnti ChristianUnjustifiedRanchers
Author:Sam Harris
Create image

“Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain -- from cosmology to psychology to economics -- has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture. Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music.”

PeopleWorldBookSelfFactsValuesPsychologyEvidenceEconomicsHonestlyScriptureSignificantDeceptionCosmosOur WorldDomainSelf DeceptionCosmologyInsufficientImmensityPresuming
Author:Sam Harris
Create image