Sam Harris Quotes

The enemy is not fundamentalism; it is intolerance. In this case, the intolerance is perverse since it masquerades under the "liberal" rhetoric of "equal time." But mistake it not.

Americans are going to see that as the more religious a Muslim is, the more likely they're going to end up somehow fighting for ISIS' cause.

Having lost faith in all else, zealots have nothing left but a holy cause to please a warrior God. They win if we become holy warriors, too; if we kill the innocent as they do; strike first at those who had not struck us; allow our leaders to use the fear of terrorism to make us afraid of the truth; cease to think and reason together, allowing others to tell what's in God's mind.

I think what speaks loudest and what speaks to your point is the blood that's spilling from Australia, to now California. I mean, how much blood has to be spilled until we recognize inside of a Muslim community that with do have an ideological problem?

Traditional Muslims stand at the foot of the ladder, living in guilt for not really practicing Islam. At the top are fundamentalists, the ones you see in the news killing women and children for the glory of the god of the Qur'an. Moderates are somewhere in between. A moderate Muslim is actually more dangerous than a fundamentalist, however, because he appears to be harmless, and you can never tell when he has taken that next step toward the top. Most suicide bombers began as moderates.

Where do poor young people turn? ISIS has a mission for you to change the world! It's a horrific vision, but it's a vision. Perhaps for white supremacists, you can add the additional storyline that they believe that they are having something taken from them by outsiders, by immigrants. Not only are they losing out and bored, but they think they are victims and that they know who is responsible.

I believe there's a diseased component inside the Islamic world, the Muslim world, absolutely. It's like a cancer and it has metastasized and grabbed hold in a much bigger way, and it's because we, have tried to be, globally, tried to be so political correct.

If we believe terrorists are past redemption, we should just rip up like 1/2 the New Testament because it was written by one.

What our leaders and pundits never let slip is that the terrorists - whatever else they might be - might also be rational human beings; which is to say that in their own minds they have a rational justification for their actions.

Throughout the world, terrorists are actively seeking their next recruit. Alarmingly, terrorist organizations are increasingly targeting school-age children as the next generation of terrorists.

I was not only a terrorist, but I was terrorized by my beliefs since I had to gain enough merit and good deeds to go to heaven but never was sure if my good deeds would outweigh my bad deeds in the scale when I would be judged by God, it was taught to us that to die fighting the Jews would ease Allah's anger towards my sins and I would be secured a good spot in heaven with beautiful wide eyed women to fulfill my most intimate desires, so either way through actual attacks on Jews, or if I were to be killed in the attempt, I would win – terror was the only way.

I can in one week assemble five hundred faithful ready to throw themselves into suicide operations. No frontier will stop them.

Especially dangerous is crime disguised under political and pseudo-religious motives, such as terrorism and the like.

I see no difference between a violent Islamist and a far-Right terrorist.

There are always going to be Muslim atrocities! Whenever the media starts obsessing with ISIS, I think you're hiding something.

ISIS rules Muslim apostates every day and then beheads them. Poorly educated guys get Islam for Dummies, petty criminals who think they're suddenly changing their lives because they see the light. The best way to fight them is to show them they don't know Islam at all, and that they are in fact working for the other side.

In Muslim societies, a person who has been manipulated unto believing in extremist violence or terrorism often seeks the permission of his mother before he may join a militant jihad and educated women as a rule, tend to withhold their blessings from such things.

Islamic terrorists are new examples of an old problem with fascism.

What the fundamentalists are doing is a total negation of their own faith - encouraging and lionizing suicide bombers and killing women and children, hardly in keeping with the teachings of Prophet Mohammed.

Islamist-jihadist terrorism-a plague that has spread to almost every corner of the world-creates painful dilemmas for the peoples and decision makers who confront it. Its rapid, shape-shifting advance has sometimes confounded efforts to comprehend its origins, motives, and aims. Its sophistication in exploiting liberal values poses challenges and difficulties for the Western world, and for liberal democratic states in general, in attaining effective and balanced counter-terrorism policies.

There needs to be a thorough examination, by Muslims everywhere, of why it is that the faith they love breeds so many violent mutant strains.

The 9/11 terrorist attack was a faith-based initiative.

I think of the people who commit these acts as children. They're in their 20s, but like certain children, they have been told only one story, over and over. Like most children, they believe in an easily identifiable good and evil, and like most children, they are capable of unthinkable cruelty.

There are millions of young children being educated to a very narrow-minded view of religion. And it's out of that education of large numbers of young people that you then get this extremism.

One outcome is almost certain. Extremism stands to benefit enormously from an uncalculated adventure in Iraq.