Quotes from Sam Harris

But the deepest goal of spirituality is freedom from the illusion of the self—and to seek such freedom, as though it were a future state to be attained through effort, is to reinforce the chains of one's apparent bondage in each moment.

history of Christianity is principally a story of mankind's misery and ignorance rather than of its requited love of God.

But maintaining eye contact can also become a way of "acting spiritual" and, therefore, an intrusive affectation. There are also people who maintain rigid eye lock not from an attitude

Many lives are almost scandal-proof. Vulnerability comes in pretending to be someone you are not.

Psychopaths tend to make exceptionally good eye contact.

The fact that faith has motivated many people to do good things does not suggest that faith is itself a necessary (or even a good) motivation for goodness.

In subjective terms, you are consciousness itself—you are not the next, evanescent image or string of words that appears in your mind. Not seeing it arise, however, the next thought will seem to become what you are.

Witnessing the misadventures of supposedly enlightened adepts and their devotees can be depressing. But it can also be amusing.

our endowment from God.

It really is possible to look for the feeling you are calling "I" and to fail to find it in a way that is conclusive.

The lies of the powerful lead us to distrust governments and corporations. The lies of the weak make us callous toward the suffering of others. The lies of conspiracy theorists raise doubts about the honesty of whistle-blowers, even when they are telling the truth.17 Lies are the social equivalent of toxic waste: Everyone is potentially harmed by their spread.

If we could popularize the understanding that all conclusions from scripture are but interpretations, then all variant readings of a holy book would become a matter of differing human perspectives. That

These silences are lacerating.

How would your relationships change if you resolved never to lie again? What truths about yourself might suddenly come into view? What kind of person would you become? And how might you change the people around you?

And the fact that millions of people use the term "morality" as a synonym for religious dogmatism, racism, sexism, or other failures of insight and compassion should not oblige us to merely accept their terminology until the end of time.

Are we unconscious during sleep or merely unable to remember what sleep is like?

The crime of host desecration was punished throughout Europe for centuries.

If you are perpetually angry, depressed, confused, and unloving, or your attention is elsewhere, it won't matter how successful you become or who is in your life—you won't enjoy any of it.

Astonishingly, ideas as spurious as the blood libel are still very much with us, having found a large cult of believers in the Muslim world.

In the East, especially in contemplative traditions like those of Buddhism, being distracted by thought is understood to be the very wellspring of human suffering.

If we could popularize the understanding that all conclusions from scripture are but interpretations, then all variant readings of a holy book would become a matter of differing human perspectives.

It is rational, even, for Muslim women to encourage the suicides of their children, as long as they are fighting for the cause of God. Devout Muslims simply know that they are going to a better place.

Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.

We spend our lives telling ourselves the story of past and future, while the reality of the present goes largely unexplored.