Sam Harris Quotes

If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good.

Any simple claim that you need religion to be good is flat wrong.

Every religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.

Religion may have become a codification of morality, and it may fortify it, but it's not the origin of it.

The law of God, and also the way to life, is written in our hearts: It lieth in no man's supposition and knowing, nor in any historical opinion, but in a good will and well-doing.

The enemies of the Christian religion and the Law of God confuse law with faith.

Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands.

Revealed religion is one thing, revealed legislation, another.

Religion can be both good and bad - it is spirituality that counts.

Politics are not the task of a Christian.

We need leadership that can elevate religion and morality to their position of paramount importance and thus eliminate growing selfishness, immorality and materialism.

I think it's imperative to have faith or religion, because it's good to have morals, to be kind to others.

One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.

Good people do good things. Bad people do bad things. But it takes religion to make good people do bad things.

It is conceivable that religion may be morally useful without being intellectually sustainable.

Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don't need religion.

Personal faith can be a powerful force for public good.

There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.

A good man, is a good man, whether in this church, or out of it.

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning - an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.

It is with this as with religion: one usually believes what he has been taught.

It seems to me that if God calls us to anything it's to a life of integrity.

Religion is the solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God.

To speak against religion (the Christian) is breaking down the bond of good government.

Religion has a good place and it has its good people.