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Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens Quotes

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Famous Christopher Hitchens Quotes

“There is a reason for the affected profession of " anarchist sympathies" among Tories and grandees, and of " libertarian principles" by Hobbesian yahoos of the right. Among the former, one sees the upholding of the view that a gentleman's business and property are his own, and none of the government's. Among the latter, a distaste for democracy, for taxation, and for the need to consult others about the planet.”

NeedsReasonGovernmentViewsPrinciplesDemocracyPlanetsPropertyLibertarianProfessionFormerGentlemanLatterAffectedTaxationAnarchistDistaste
Book:For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports
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“The god of Moses would call for other tribes, including his favorite one, to suffer massacre and plague and even extirpation, but when the grave closed over his victims he was essentially finished with them unless he remembered to curse their succeeding progeny. Not until the advent of the Prince of Peace do we hear of the ghastly idea of further punishing and torturing the dead.”

IdeasSufferingSucceedVictimIncludingFinishedGravesRememberedCurseTribesPlagueMosesAdventMassacresGhastlyProgenyPrince Of Peace
Book:God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
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“Chomsky proceeds on the almost unthinkably subversive assumption that the United States should be judged by the same standards that it preaches (often at gunpoint) to other nations he is nearly the only person now writing who assumes a single standard of international morality not for rhetorical effect, but as a matter of habitual, practically instinctual conviction.”

ShouldWritingPersonsMatterStatesNationsUnitedUnited StatesEffectsMoralityStandardsAssumingInternationalConvictionAssumptionJudgedHabitualSubversiveRhetorical
Book:For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports
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“It was an axiom of "containment" that no part of the known world could be considered neutral. "Neutralism" was among the Cold Warriors' gravest curse words, applied with caustic hostility to India and even France. Those who were not with were against, subjected to intense economic and ideological and sometimes military pressure to fall into line.”

WorldSometimesFallLinesKnownEconomicMilitaryColdIndiaPressureIntenseWarriorFranceCurseCold WarHostilityIdeologicalAxiomsContainmentCausticCurse Words
Book:For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports
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“Every campaign, Garry Wills once wrote, "taught Nixon the same lesson: mobilize resentment against those in power." History taught the same to many conservative and reactionary populist movements, whose real attitude to those in power and authority was one of a servile, envious, vicarious adoration.”

RealAttitudeMovementTaughtLessonsAuthorityConservativeCampaignsResentmentAdorationEnviousReactionariesPopulistVicarious
Book:For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports
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“The United States has an isolationist and insular culture, combined with a global and interventionist posture. This highly dangerous and febrile mixture, which greatly facilitates the task of the fear-mongers and chauvinists, needs a very exact and nuanced diagnosis. I don't think that analogies from the totalitarian model, however suggestive, are sufficient.”

ThinkingNeedsStatesCultureUnitedUnited StatesDangerousModelsTasksSufficientMixturesDiagnosisPostureAnalogiesFacilitate
Book:For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports
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“The polls undoubtedly help to decide what people think, but their most important long-term influence may be on how people think. The interrogative process is very distinctly weighted against the asking of an intelligent question or the recording of a thoughtful answer.”

PeopleThinkingMayLongImportantHelpingProcessTermAnswersInfluenceIntelligentAskingLong TermThoughtfulPolls
Book:For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports
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“Many of the points made by the antiwar movement have been consciously assimilated by the Pentagon and its lawyers and advisers. Precision weaponry is good in itself, but its ability to discriminate is improving and will continue to improve. Cluster bombs are perhaps not good in themselves, but when they are dropped on identifiable concentrations of Taliban troops, they do have a heartening effect.”

Has BeensMadeAbilityEffectsMovementLawyerBombsConcentrationAntiwarTroopsImprovingPrecisionTalibanAdviserPentagonClustersWeaponry
Book:Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
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“When I am at home, I never go near the synagogue unless, say, there is a bar or bat mitzvah involving the children of friends. But when I am traveling, in a country where Jewish life is scarce or endangered, I often make a visit to the shul.”

ChildrenCountryHomeLife IsBarsBatsInvolvingScarceSynagogueMitzvahJewish LifeBat Mitzvah
Book:Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
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“The enormous dynamic and creative, as well as destructive energy of capitalism... is written up with more praise and more respect by Marx and Engels in the 1848 Communist Manifesto than probably by anyone since. I don't think anyone has ever said so precisely and with such awed admiration how great capitalism is, how inventive, how innovative, how dynamic, how much force of creativity it unleashes.”

ThinkingWellsSaidEnergyForceCreativityCreativeWrittenCapitalismPraiseEnormousDestructiveAdmirationCommunistInnovativeManifestosCommunist ManifestoEngels
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“Even the most humane and compassionate of the monotheisms and polytheisms are complicit in this quiet and irrational authoritarianism: they proclaim us, in Fulke Greville's unforgettable line, "Created sick Commanded to be well." And there are totalitarian insinuations to back this up if its appeal should fail.”

IfsShouldWellsLinesFailingQuietSickAppealsCompassionateIrrationalHumaneAuthoritarianismUnforgettableMonotheismPolytheism
Book:Letters to a Young Contrarian
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“The realization that American power could and should be used for the defense of pluralism and as a punishment for fascism came to me in Sarajevo a year or two later... That was an early quarrel between me and many of my Nation colleagues, and it was also the first time I found myself in the same trench as people like Paul Wolfowitz and Jeane Kirkpatrick: a shock I had to learn to get over. The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.”

PeopleThinkingShouldYearsFirstsTwoRealUsedFoundNationsPartyFirst TimeDefensePunishmentRealizationOur TimeShockRejectsFascismColleaguesGet OverQuarrelsTrenchesPluralismRadicalismAmerican Power
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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