Sam Harris

Neuroscientist, Philosopher

Quotes by Sam Harris

"Spirituality must be distinguished from religion—because people of every faith, and of none, have had the same sorts of spiritual experiences." - Sam Harris

"It is always now." - Sam Harris

"Consciousness is the one thing in the universe that cannot be an illusion--even if I'm a brain in a vat, all my memories are false, and my perceptions are of a world that doesn't exist, I'm still having a conscious experience." - Sam Harris

"Your mind is the basis of everything you experience and of every contribution you make to the lives of others. Given this fact, it makes sense to train it." - Sam Harris

"The reality of consciousness appears irreducible. Only consciousness can know itself—and directly, through first-person experience." - Sam Harris

"Once one recognizes the selflessness of consciousness, the practice of meditation becomes just a means of getting more familiar with it." - Sam Harris

"Some pleasures are intrinsically ethical — feelings like love, gratitude, devotion, and compassion. To inhabit these states of mind is, by definition, to be brought into alignment with others." - Sam Harris

"There is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives." - Sam Harris

"There is nothing passive about mindfulness. One might even say that it expresses a specific kind of passion—a passion for discerning what is subjectively real in every moment. It is a mode of cognition that is, above all, undistracted, accepting, and (ultimately) nonconceptual. Being mindful is not a matter of thinking more clearly about experience; it is the act of experiencing more clearly, including the arising of thoughts themselves. Mindfulness is a vivid awareness of whatever is appearing in one’s mind or body—thoughts, sensations, moods—without grasping at the pleasant or recoiling from the unpleasant." - Sam Harris

"How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives. Mystics and contemplatives have made this claim for ages — but a growing body of scientific research now bears it out." - Sam Harris

"The feeling that we call “I” is itself the product of thought. Having an ego is "what it feels like to be thinking", without knowing that you are thinking." - Sam Harris

"The reality of your life is always NOW. And to realize this, we will see, is liberating. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand if you want to be happy in this world." - Sam Harris

"I’m not denying the importance of achieving one’s goals, maintaining one’s health, or keeping one’s children clothed and fed—but most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now." - Sam Harris

"There is nothing novel about trying to become happy. And one can become happy, within certain limits, without any recourse to the practice of meditation. But conventional sources of happiness are unreliable, being dependent upon changing conditions. It is difficult to raise a happy family, to keep yourself and those you love healthy, to acquire wealth and find creative and fulfilling ways to enjoy it, to form deep friendships, to contribute to society in ways that are emotionally rewarding, to perfect a wide variety of artistic, athletic, and intellectual skills—and to keep the machinery of happiness running day after day. There is nothing wrong with being fulfilled in all these ways—except for the fact that, if you pay close attention, you will see that there is still something wrong with it. These forms of happiness aren’t good enough. Our feelings of fulfillment do not last. And the stress of life continues." - Sam Harris

"It may not be coincidental that [you] use phrases like ‘self conscious’ when you really mean that you are conscious of others being conscious of you." - Sam Harris

"The principal enemy of mindfulness—or of any meditative practice—is our deeply conditioned habit of being distracted by thoughts. The problem is not thoughts themselves but the state of thinking without knowing that we are thinking." - Sam Harris

"Consciousness is the one thing in this universe that cannot be an illusion." - Sam Harris

"The sensation of touching your finger to your nose. We experience the contact as simultaneous, but we know that it can’t be simultaneous at the level of the brain, because it takes longer for the nerve impulse to travel to sensory cortex from your fingertip than it does from your nose—and this is true no matter how short your arms or long your nose. Our brains correct for this discrepancy in timing by holding these inputs in memory and then delivering the result to consciousness. Thus, your experience of the present moment is the product of layered memories." - Sam Harris

Persons shown on this website are not affiliated with or materially involved with the ConscioCentric Paradigm. Their writings, teachings, publications or quotes have been influential to the ideas of ConscioCentrism.

Sam Harris

Quotes by Sam Harris

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