525 Quotes by Sam Harris

The truth, however, is that the conflict between religion and science is unavoidable. The success of science often comes at the expense of religious dogma; the maintenance of religious dogma always comes at the expense of science.

My friend Joseph Goldstein, one of the finest vipassana teachers I know, likens this shift in awareness to the experience of being fully immersed in a film and then suddenly realizing that you are sitting in a theater watching a mere play of light on a wall.

Eventually, it begins to seem as if you are repeatedly awakening from a dream to find yourself safely in bed. No matter how terrible the dream, the relief is instantaneous.

What I’m asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives.

None of these adventitious mental states are the real you. You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.

While we may never achieve closure in our view of the world, it seems extraordinarily likely that our descendants will look upon many of our beliefs as both impossibly quaint and suicidally stupid.

Moderates want their faith respected. They don’t want faith itself criticized, and yet faith itself is what is bringing us all this – this lunacy.

Let me assure you that my intent is not to offend or merely be provocative. I’m simply worried.

You don’t choose to choose what you choose in life!