“Choosing beliefs freely is not what rational minds do.”
More from Sam Harris on Philosophy
“We will embarrass our descendants, just as our ancestors embarrass us. This is moral progress.”
“Certainty about the next life is simply incompatible with tolerance in this one.”
“We must continually remind ourselves that there is a difference between what is natural and what is actually good for us.”
“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.”
“We are not self-caused little gods.”
“What evidence could possibly be put forward to show that one could have acted differently in the past?”
“Of course, the liar often imagines that he does no harm as long as his lies go undetected.”
“Theology is ignorance with wings.”
“What we do in every other area of our lives (other than religion), is, rather than respect somebody's beliefs, we evaluate their reasons.”
“You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.”
Others on Philosophy
Ludwig Wittgenstein
22 quotes“The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood.”
Christopher Hitchens
22 quotes“How much vanity must be concealed – not too effectively at that – in order to pretend that one is the personal object of...”
Nietzsche
22 quotes“One does not hate as long as one has a low esteem of someone, but only when one esteems him as an equal or a superior.”
Carl Jung
21 quotes“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”
Immanuel Kant
20 quotes“Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”
Heraclitus
19 quotes“All things flow nothing abides.”
H. L. Mencken
17 quotes“We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.”
C.S. Lewis
15 quotes“[Consciousness] is either inexplicable illusion, or else revelation.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
14 quotes“Consciousness is man's greatest misfortune, still I know that man loves it and will not exchange it for any satisfaction...”
Samuel Beckett
14 quotes“The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.”
Napoleon
14 quotes“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”
Isaac Asimov
13 quotes“Society is much more easily soothed than one's own conscience.”