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Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports

Book by Christopher Hitchens · 2 quotes · Cold War, Communism, Politics

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Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports Quotes

“Periclean Greeks employed the term idiotis, without any connotation of stupidity or subnormality, to mean simply 'a person indifferent to public affairs.' Obviously, there is something wanting in the apolitical personality. But we have also come to suspect the idiocy of politicization—of the professional pol and power broker. The two idiocies make a perfect match, with the apathy of the first permitting the depredations of the second.”

PoliticsAthensPolitics Of The United StatesAncient GreeceApoliticalPericles
Book:Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports
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“Religions and states and classes and tribes and nations do not have to work or argue for their adherents and subjects. They more or less inherit them. Against this unearned patrimony there have always been speakers and writers who embody Einstein's injunction to 'remember your humanity and forget the rest.' It would be immodest to claim membership in this fraternity/sorority, but I hope not to have done anything to outrage it. Despite the idiotic sneer that such principles are 'fashionable,' it is always the ideas of secularism, libertarianism, internationalism, and solidarity that stand in need of reaffirmation.”

ReligionPoliticsAtheismLibertarianismSecularismSocial ClassInternationalismAlbert Einstein
Book:Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports
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