Quotessence
Home / Authors / Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllReligionIfsPeopleAtheismThinkingUnited StatesAtheistPoliticsKnowsHumans

Famous Christopher Hitchens Quotes

“The best blended Scotch in the history of the world - which was also the favourite drink of the Iraqi Baath Party, as it still is of the Palestinian Authority and the Libyan dictatorship and large branches of the Saudi Arabian royal family - is Johnnie Walker Black. Breakfast of champions, accept no substitute.”

WorldStillsBlackPartyAcceptingDrinkAuthorityChampionBranchesSubstitutesBreakfastFavouriteDictatorshipPalestinianRoyalWorld HistorySaudisWalkersScotchRoyal FamilyArabianBreakfast Of Champions
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“In some ways I feel sorry for racists and for religious fanatics, because they so much miss the point of being human, and deserve a sort of pity. But then I harden my heart, and decide to hate them all the more, because of the misery they inflict and because of the contemptible excuses they advance for doing so.”

WayFeelsHumansHeartHateReligiousMissingMy HeartDeserveMiserySorryExcusePityRacistBeing HumanFanaticsReligious Fanatics
Book:Letters to a Young Contrarian
Create image

“Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.”

PeopleIfsGivenChurchPoorMoralClearExampleProtectSickInnocentEthicalFraudFanaticsFundamentalistEthical Questions
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“All this could be part of a plan. There is no way an atheist can prove it’s not. But it’s some plan, isn't it? With mass destruction, pitiless extermination, annihilation going on all the time. And all of this set in motion on a scale that’s absolutely beyond our imagination, in order that the pope can tell people not to jerk off.”

PeopleWayOrderImaginationPlansProveMassDestructionAtheistScalesPopeMass DestructionJerkProve ItAnnihilationExtermination
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way — because it’s had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.”

KnowsWayGivingYearsBelieveKindHas BeensFacesStrongSidesForgetOur LivesImpossibleRiskLet MeDiscussionSmileySmiley Face
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“No, nothing is sacred. And even if there were to be something called sacred, we mere primates wouldn't be able to decide which book or which idol or which city was the truly holy one. Thus, the only thing that should be upheld at all costs and without qualification is the right of free expression, because if that goes, then so do all other claims of right as well.”

IfsShouldWellsBookAbleCitiesExpressionHolyCostClaimsSacredMereIdolsQualificationsPrimatesFree Expression
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“The crucial distinction between systems...was no longer ideological. The main political difference was between those who did, and those who did not, believe that the citizen could -- or should -- be the property of the state.”

ShouldBelieveStatesPoliticalDifferencesCitizensPropertyDistinctionCrucialIndividualismIdeologicalPolitical Differences
Book:Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
Create image

“To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness.”

Would BeRunningFilmTermLevelsMoralPiecesRiskExerciseObviousCrowdsCrapDiscourseRise AboveSeriousnessSinisterRespectabilityFrivolity
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“Whenever I hear some bigmouth in Washington or the Christian heartland banging on about the evils of sodomy or whatever, I mentally enter his name in my notebook and contentedly set my watch. Sooner rather than later, he will be discovered down on his weary and well-worn old knees in some dreary motel or latrine, with an expired Visa card, having tried to pay well over the odds to be peed upon by some Apache transvestite.”

WellsChristianEvilNamesPayWatchesCardsKneesOddsWornWearyNotebookDrearyVisaBangingMotelsExpiredTransvestites
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
Create image

“I can't find the compulsory mutilation of the genitals of children a subject for humor... It's designed to repress sexual pleasure... The full excision, not just the snip but the full mandatory covenant is fantastically painful, leads to trauma, leads to the dulling of the sexual relationship. And can be, in itself life-threatening at that moment. We have records, I can show them to you, of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds in the United States of boy babies who died or had life-threatening infections as a result of this disgusting practice.”

ChildrenI CanStatesMomentsShowsPleasureUnitedResultsBoysPracticeUnited StatesRecordsSubjectsBabyDiedAtheistPainfulTraumaThat MomentDisgustingThreateningCovenantInfectionCompulsoryMutilation
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“This huge and terrible industry [the slave trade] was blessed by all churches and for a long time aroused absolutely no religious protest. . . . In the eighteenth century, a few dissenting Mennonites and Quakers in America began to call for abolition, as did some freethinkers like Thomas Paine.”

LongAmericaReligionChurchReligiousCenturyHugeIndustryTerribleLong TimeBlessedTradeSlaveProtestAbolitionFreethinkerQuakerSlave TradePaine
Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume
Create image

“Benito Mussolini had barely seized power in Italy before the Vatican made an official treaty with him, known as the Lateran Pact of 1929. Under the terms of this deal, Catholicism became the only recognized religion in Italy, with monopoly powers over matters such as birth, marriage, death, and education, and in return urged its followers to vote for Mussolini's party. Pope Pius XI described II Duce (“the leader”) as “a man sent by providence.””

MenMadeReligionChurchPartyReturnEuropeVoteOfficialsCatholicismFollowersAlliesSouthernRegimesProvidencePopeTreatiesFascists
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“Kissinger projects a strong impression of a man at home in the world and on top of his brief. But there are a number of occasions when it suits him to pose as a sort of Candide: naive, and ill-prepared for and easily unhorsed by events. No doubt this pose costs him something in point of self-esteem. It is a pose, furthermore, which he often adopts at precisely the time when the record shows him to be knowledgeable, and when knowledge or foreknowledge would also confront him with charges of responsibility or complicity.”

MenWorldSelfShowsHomeStrongNumbersResponsibilityDoubtRecordsEventsSelf EsteemCostProjectsPreparedIllImpressionEsteemSuitsOccasionsNo DoubtNaiveKnowledgeableComplicityCandideKissinger
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image