Sam Harris Quotes

Your capacity to be offended isn't something that I or anyone else needs to respect. It isn't something that you should respect. In fact, it's something you should be on your guard for.

I cannot take credit for the fact that I do not have the soul of a psychopath.

Remaining open to the powers of conversation — to new evidence and better arguments — is not only essential for rationality. It is essential for love.

So to make a little quibble of my own, I think the essence of what we want in science are not justified beliefs but good explanations.

It seems to me that few concepts have offered greater scope for human cruelty than the idea of an immortal soul that stands independent of all material influences, ranging from genes to economic systems.

The point is that most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was thought sacred yesterday.

I don't always communicate the truth in the way that I want to — but one of the strengths of telling the truth is that it remains open for elaboration. If what you say in the heat of the moment isn’t quite right, you can amend it. I have learned that I would rather be maladroit, or even rude, than dishonest.

I cannot decide what I will next think or intend until a thought or intention arises. What will my next mental state be? I do not know — it just happens. Where is the freedom in that?

Honest people are a refuge: You know they mean what they say; you know they will not say one thing to your face and another behind your back; you know they will tell you when they think you have failed — and for this reason their praise cannot be mistaken for mere flattery.

Becoming a part of a movement doesn't help anybody think clearly.

We rely on faith only in the context of claims for which there is no sufficient sensory or logical evidence.

we should observe just how deeply implausible the Koranic paradise is.

We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises. To understand this is to realize that we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions in the way that people generally suppose.

Peaceful, honest people have the right to be left alone.

To say that someone freely chose to squander his life's savings at the poker tabile is to say that he had every opportunity to do otherwise and that nothing about what he did was inadvertent