Sam Harris Quotes

Good people can disagree - all you want is honesty, because you know, if I disagree, I'm willing to debate you on that, and then let the public decide what's good policy and bad policy.

I believe in freedom of speech. I believe people have the right to say whatever they want to say. As long as they're ready to own what they say. Because there's a price to pay when you say something that's against the grain that is not correct.

A function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it invites a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it passes for acceptance of an idea.

I think anyone who has an opinion, and voices it, will offend someone.

I think that we need to look hard at our beliefs and be responsible about how we speak out.

The power of real debate is in the language and intellectual honesty of the debaters, alongside the engagement of spectators.

It's not my responsibility to make everything I say idiot-proof.

No errors of opinion can possibly be dangerous in a country where opinion is left free to grapple with them.

Of course there are always exceptions, but opinions are not to be feared.

I believe in a free market of ideas and not shying away from debate.

What the nation's built on is discussion, contradiction and growth, and at the moment you can't discuss anything. If you do start to discuss it, you get criticized. If people hate us, you have to find out why and try to solve that problem.

One may criticize even what one reveres.

The public use of man's reason must always be free, and it alone can cause enlightenment.

And I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his present repute for the freedom to think, And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t'other half for the freedom to speak.

Men must also be allowed the publication of their opinions, if this be done with decency and seriousness, for the learned can have no right to say that they are in possession of the truth, still less can the unlearned, unless every grave man can offer his opinions, be they what they may…

Anybody can have any opinion they want to, as long as it's an informed opinion.

If you don't want to investigate what you're passing judgment on, then it's your fault. And I believe that if people investigate Goldberg as a human being, I'm not such a bad guy.

It isn't only in the name of free speech that the views of an itchy polemicist should be tolerated - and I say itchy polemicist promoting thought, not itchy ideologue promoting violence - but because provocation is indispensable to the workings of a sound, creative culture.

People have their own opinions, they have the right to express them, they just don't have the right to attack you.

One's political views and/or religious beliefs should not exist in an impenetrable and inviolable bubble wherein they are protected from criticism or scrutiny.

To try to preemptively shut down debate with name-calling is profoundly un-American and will harm this country.

I want people to have conversations, to have controversy because it creates dialogue and builds bridges.

We cannot be so scared that our ideas or opinions will not survive being tested. If you are afraid of being wrong, then you might not have a good argument.

At some point you have to take responsibility for who you are and where you are and being able to listen to other points of view, whichever side of the tracks you're on.

I have a long history of defending, and promoting, free speech and open debate - especially (especially!) within Muslim communities.