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Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens Quotes

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Famous Christopher Hitchens Quotes

“Religion of every kind involves the promise that the misery and futility of existence can be overcome or even transfigured. One might suppose that the possession of such a magnificent formula, combined with the tremendous assurance of a benevolent God, would make a person happy. But such appears not to be the case.: unease and insecurity and rage seem to keep up with blissful certainty, and even to outpace it.”

KindPersonsSeemsMightExistenceCasesPromiseOvercomingMiseryPossessionRageCertaintyInsecurityFormulasMagnificentAssuranceFutilityBenevolent
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“When I abandoned the smoking habit of more than three decades I was given a supposedly helpful pill called Wellbutrin. But as soon as I discovered that this was the brand name for an antidepressant, I tossed the bottle away. There may be successful methods for overcoming the blues but for me they cannot include a capsule that says: 'Fool yourself into happiness, while pretending not to do so.' I should actually want my mind to be strong enough to circumvent such a trick.”

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Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“[Concerning monotheistic religions] The only thing these hysterical cults have in common is the belief that this world will be consumed, and deservedly so, when the moment is ripe. They also, all of them, profess a great disdain for earthly possessions. Yet they pass the intervening time in haggling over the most trivial and paltry property rights, over caves and rocks and disputable pieces of archeological rubbish.”

WorldMomentsBeliefCommonPiecesRightsRocksThis WorldPropertyPossessionCultCavesConsumedRipeRubbishProperty RightsDisdainHystericalInterveningEarthly Possessions
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“It would have been very alarming - morally, and in other ways too - if an attack of that nature, the 11 September attacks, had not aroused in us and in our governments and societies the spirit of self-defence. If that had not been one of the responses it seems to me there would have been very grave cause for concern.”

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Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“Which natural gift would you most like to possess? The ability to master other languages (which would have hugely enhanced the scope of these answers). How would you like to die? Fully conscious, and either fighting or reciting (or fooling around). What do you most dislike about your appearance? The way in which it makes former admirers search for neutral words.”

WayDiesFightingLanguageNaturalAbilityAnswersMastersConsciousAppearanceFormerDislikeScopeAdmirerRecitingNatural GiftsFooling Around
Book:Hitch-22: A Memoir
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“I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim—so modestly and so humbly—to possess. It is time to withdraw our 'respect' from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world.”

WorldMindHumansRealReligionRecordsAtheismMaterialsMetsUnderstoodClaimsIntelligentAtheistBelieverFantasticGodlyQualificationsExertionMaterial WorldPower Over OthersHighly Intelligent
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”

PeopleHandsRememberStrongAtheismOffersAtheistRefuseUpliftingSolidarityCompetingConsolationMarketplaceMerchantsGod Is Not GreatSmirkBazaars
Book:God is Not Great
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“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”

IfsScienceSilenceCompassionCourageArgumentDignitySakeExcuseStupiditySelfishGravesPlentyExpertsMotiveSuspectsInvitesArrogantIrrationalDistrustSpectatorsTranscendentSeductiveSubordinatesMammalsUnfairnessGod Is Not GreatLive For Others
Book:Letters to a Young Contrarian
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“Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely soley upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.”

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Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume
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“The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.”

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Book:God is Not Great
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“Those of us who write and study history are accustomed to its approximations and ambiguities. This is why we do not take literally the tenth-hand reports of frightened and illiterate peasants who claim to have seen miracles or to have had encounters with messiahs and prophets and redeemers who were, like them, mere humans. And this is also why we will never submit to dictation from those who display a fanatical belief in certainty and revelation.”

WritingHumansHandsBeliefStudyAtheismMiracleClaimsMereAtheistCertaintyProphetEncountersRevelationsReportsFrightenedDisplaySubmitAccustomedAmbiguityPeasantsMessiahIlliterateRedeemerApproximationDictation
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“We know of no spectacle more ridiculous—or more contemptible—than that of the religious reactionaries who dare to re-write the history of our republic. Or who try to do so. Is it possible that, in their vanity and stupidity, they suppose that they can erase the name of Thomas Jefferson and replace it with the name of some faith-based mediocrity whose name is already obscure? If so, we cheerfully resolve to mock them, and to give them the lie in their teeth.”

IfsKnowsGivingWritingTryingLyingNamesReligiousDareStupidityRidiculousTeethVanityResolveRepublicMediocrityObscureEraseMockReactionariesFaith Based
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“Here we are then, I was thinking, in a war to the finish between everything I love and everything I hate. Fine. We will win and they will lose. A pity that we let them pick the time and place of the challenge, but we can and we will make up for that.”

ThinkingWarHateWinningLosesChallengesFinePicksI HatePityWe Will Win
Book:Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
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“An old joke has an Oxford professor meeting an American former graduate student and asking him what he's working on these days. 'My thesis is on the survival of the class system in the United States.' 'Oh really, that's interesting: one didn't think there was a class system in the United States.' 'Nobody does. That's how it survives.”

ThinkingDoeStatesInterestingUnitedClassUnited StatesStudentsSurvivalJokesAskingMeetingsFormerThese DaysProfessorsGraduatesOxfordThesisGraduate StudentsClass SystemOld Jokes
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“Since I speak and write about this a good deal, I am often asked at public meetings, in what sometimes seems to me a rather prurient way, whether I myself or my family have 'ever been threatened' by jihadists. My answer is that yes, I have, and so has everyone else in the audience, if they have paid enough attention to the relevant bin-Ladenist broadcasts to notice the fact.”

IfsWayWritingSometimesEnoughFactsSeemsSpeakAnswersDealsAttentionAudienceMy FamilyPaidMeetingsTerrorismRelevantThreatened
Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume
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“In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.”

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Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“I had become too accustomed to the pseudo-Left new style, whereby if your opponent thought he had identified your lowest possible motive, he was quite certain that he had isolated the only real one. This vulgar method, which is now the norm and the standard in much non-Left journalism as well, is designed to have the effect of making any noisy moron into a master analyst.”

IfsWellsRealCertainLeftEffectsStyleMastersStandardsMethodJournalismOpponentsMotiveIsolatedLowestNormVulgarAccustomedNoisyMoronAnalystsPseudoReal Ones
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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