black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence. If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?

Sam Harris

Most of us are wiser than we may appear to be. On one level, wisdom is nothing more profound than an ability to follow ones own advice.
SAM HARRIS

Advice Appearance Level Oneself Wisdom
It is time we recognized that belief is not a private matter; it has never been merely private. In fact, beliefs are scarcely more private than actions are, for every belief is a fount of action in potential.
SAM HARRIS

Action Belief Potential Privacy Time
We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That’s it. Conversation and violence. And faith is a conversation stopper.
SAM HARRIS

Choice Conversation Faith Human Option Violence
Religious moderation is the direct result of taking scripture less and less seriously. So why not take it less seriously still? Why not admit the the Bible is merely a collection of imperfect books written by highly fallible human beings.
SAM HARRIS

Direction Human Perfection Religious Result Serious
It’s simply untrue that religion provides the only framework for a universal morality.
SAM HARRIS

Frame Moral Religion True Universe
Despite a full century of scientific insights attesting to the antiquity of the earth, more than half of our neighbors believe that the entire cosmos was created six thousand years ago. This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue.
SAM HARRIS

Believe Creation Earth Invention Science
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.
SAM HARRIS

Current Hold Holy Thinking
The wealthiest Americans often live as though they and their children had nothing to gain from investments in education, infrastructure, clean-energy, and scientific research.
SAM HARRIS

Cleaning Infrastructure Live Research Science
When considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or one isn’t. Religion is one area of our lives where people imagine that some other standard of intellectual integrity applies.
SAM HARRIS

Honesty Imagination Integrity Intellectual Religion Standard Truth Yourself
An argument can be logically valid, but unsound in that it contains a false premise and, therefore, leads to a false conclusion (e.g., Scientists are smart; smart people do not make mistakes; therefore, scientists do not make mistakes).
SAM HARRIS

Argument Assumption Fake Leadership Logic Mistake Science
Consider it: every person you have ever met, every person will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime?
SAM HARRIS

Friendship Love Oneself Person Suffering Time World
Science, in the broadest sense, includes all reasonable claims to knowledge about ourselves and the world.
SAM HARRIS

Knowledge Ourselves Reason Science
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

Boundary Human Ourselves Politics Science Thinking Transcendence
I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs.
SAM HARRIS

Evidence History Human Myself Society
Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.
SAM HARRIS

Conscious Freedom Ourselves Simplicity Thinking Willing
Let me assure you that my intent is not to offend or merely be provocative. I’m simply worried.
SAM HARRIS

Assure Myself Offend Simplicity Worry

If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence. If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence. If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Sam Harris Quotes