Sam Harris Quotes

As a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?

The human race is fundamentally insane. If you put two of us into a room together, we're soon gonna start figuring out good reasons to kill one another.

Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?

The only thing I learnt in high school is that people are very violent and territorial.

They are a scurvy race and simply savages. We could beat hell out of them.

Let me tell you something about the people. Lock ten of them in a room and they may not pick a leader but I guarantee you, the will pick someone to hate.

Hate-racial, tribal, religious, ancestral, national, social, ethical, political, economic, ideological-in itself represents the inexorable defeat of mankind, its absolute defeat. If there is an area in which mankind cannot claim the slightest progress, this surely is it. It does not take much for human beings, collectively or individually, to suddenly one day pit themselves like wild beasts one against the other, their worst instincts laid bare, in a state of deleterious exaltation. One decision, one simple word, and a family or a community will drown in blood or perish in flames. Why is there so much violence, so much hate? How is it conceived, transmitted, fertilized, nurtured? As we face the disquieting, implacable rise of intolerance and fanaticism on more than one continent, it is our duty to expose the danger. By naming it. By confronting it.

We seek a logical understanding of mass violence, but war and civil strife rarely explode because of rational grievances. Complaints about oppression, poverty or injustice may serve as superficial catalysts, but few wars can be traced to objective decision-making by the dispassionate leaders of cool-headed populations. War is an act of passion, not of policy.

They were the sort of people that lynch Negroes, that mistake hoodlumism for wit, and cunning for intelligence, that attend revivals and fight and fornicate in the bushes afterwards. They were undiluted “Anglo-Saxons. They were the sovereign voter. It was so horrible it seemed unreal.

Societies organized for the interplay of individual self-interest can collapse into manic tribalism, if not nihilistic violence.

Look at history. It's not the account of a species at peace.

Disgust is a very powerful tool for bringing about crowd violence. If a group can be dehumanized and made into the Other, the 'them,' to treat that group horribly is made much easier.

Hatred and fear blind us. We no longer see each other. We see only the faces of monsters, and that gives us the courage to destroy each other.

War, hate, jealousy, racism - what are they but manifestations of fear?

But we are what we are, and humans will always hate.

In the book, America had already been weakened by bio terror plagues before waves of selfish violence took down the rest. But the real enemy was the kind of male human being who nurses fantasies of violent glory at the expense of his fellow citizens.

Either war is obsolete, or men are.

Religion and politics hit nerves. There's a lot of anger about a lot of things. It's not easily resolved. I guess that's what wars are about. Wars are about prejudice and fear. Hit first before you get hit. Believe me, I know.

Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.

If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed and color, we would find some other causes for prejudice by noon.

War was forced upon mankind in his original civil and social condition.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

Certainly, if you look at human behavior around the world, you have to admit that we can be very aggressive.

Civilisation is partly about restraining the male of the species from engaging in the violence of the hunter-gatherer period. But it doesn't take an awful lot to unleash it.

Without game, men prey on each other.