Quotessence
Home / Authors / Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllReligionIfsPeopleAtheismThinkingUnited StatesAtheistPoliticsKnowsHumansWarWayWellsWritingReasonBelieveGod Is Not GreatStatesWorldHas Beens

Famous Christopher Hitchens Quotes

“Bertrand Russell used to employ the method of "evidence against interest"; in other words of deciding that a critique of capital punishment, say, carried more weight if it came from a prison governor. (My friend John O'Sullivan puts it like this: If the pope says he believes in God, he's only doing his job; if he says he doesn't believe in God, he may be on to something.)”

IfsBelieveMayJobsUsedInterestEvidenceMy FriendsArgumentWeightMethodPrisonPunishmentBelieve In GodGovernorsPopeCritiqueCapital PunishmentInterest In Others
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“The obsession with gold, actually and politically, occurs among those who regard economics as a branch of morality. Gold is solid, gold is durable, gold is rare, gold is even (in certain very peculiar circumstances) convertible. To believe in thrift, solidity and soundness is to believe in some way in the properties of gold.”

WayBelieveCertainMoneyCircumstancesMoralityEconomicsGoldRegardPropertyObsessionBranchesPeculiarThriftSoliditySoundness
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“For some reason, which I believe I can guess, the churches/mosques want control of people when or while they are the most vulnerable or suggestible. If they can't get them in school, then they get them when they are hungry, or frightened, or ill, or homeless, or unemployed. Same difference. Here's your gruel, and here's a tract.”

PeopleIfsWantBelieveI CanReasonSchoolI BelieveDifferencesChurchIllHungryVulnerableFrightenedHomelessUnemployedMosques
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“Religion is part of the human make-up. It's also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.”

FirstsBelieveHumansPhilosophyCareUniverseLiteratureHealingIntellectualHealth CareMake SenseCosmologyFaith Healing
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“Here is the point about myself and my co-thinkers. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not hold our convictions dogmatically. We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true - that religion has caused innumerate people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow.”

PeopleKnowsWayBelieveFactsBeliefPrinciplesRaisesConvictionCertaintyBehaveAwardsEthicalThinkerPermissionEyebrowsKeepersBrothelsGod Is Not Great
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.”

NeedsMindBelieveDifferentReasonAnimalVirtueAtheismAtheistSurrenderYearningSkepticismOverratedSinisterMammals
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

“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

“A wide and vague impression exists that so-called Eastern religion is more contemplative, innocuous, and humane than the proselytizing monotheisms of the West. Don't believe a word of this: try asking the children of Indochina who were dumped by their parents for inherited deformities that were attributed to sins in a previous 'life.”

TryingBelieveChildrenParentSinAskingWestDon't BelieveAtheistWideImpressionVagueEasternHumaneContemplativeDumpedMonotheismDeformityPrevious LifeProselytizingIndochina
Author:Christopher Hitchens
Create image

“I would say that if you don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you're really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”

IfsBelieveChristianJesusChristSinSacrificeRoseDon't BelieveMeaningfulForgivenMessiahNazareth
Book:Christopher Hitchens: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations
Create image