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Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens Quotes

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Famous Christopher Hitchens Quotes

“It can certainly be misleading to take the attributes of a movement, or the anxieties and contradictions of a moment, and to personalize or 'objectify' them in the figure of one individual. Yet ordinary discourse would be unfeasible without the use of portmanteau terms—like 'Stalinism,' say—just as the most scrupulous insistence on historical forces will often have to concede to the sheer personality of a Napoleon or a Hitler. I thought then, and I think now, that Osama bin Laden was a near-flawless personification of the mentality of a real force: the force of Islamic jihad. And I also thought, and think now, that this force absolutely deserves to be called evil, and that the recent decapitation of its most notorious demagogue and organizer is to be welcomed without reserve. Osama bin Laden's writings and actions constitute a direct negation of human liberty, and vent an undisguised hatred and contempt for life itself.”

ReligionEvilLibertyHistoryIslamTerrorismOsama Bin LadenJihadTheocracyStalinismAdolf HitlerNapoleonIslamism2011September 11 AttacksDeath Of Osama Bin LadenCults Of Personality
Book:The Enemy
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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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“I am not one of those who believes—as Obama is said to believe—that a solution to the Palestinian statehood question would bring an end to Muslim resentment against the United States. (Incidentally, if he really does believe this, his lethargy and impotence in the face of Netanyahu's consistent double-dealing is even more culpable.) The Islamist fanatics have their own agenda, and, as in the case of Hamas and its Iranian backers, they have already demonstrated that nothing but the destruction of Israel and the removal of American influence from the region will possibly satisfy them. No, it is more the case that justice—and a homeland for the Palestinians—is a good and necessary cause in its own right. It is also a special legal and moral responsibility of the United States, which has several times declared a dual-statehood outcome to be its objective.”

ReligionUnited StatesAtheismIslamIsraelIranForeign PolicyMiddle EastPalestineHamasIsraeli Palestinian ConflictBarack ObamaIslamismUs Foreign PolicyBenjamin NetanyahuObama Middle East PolicyObama Foreign Policy
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“What struck me, in reading the reports from Sri Lanka, was the mild disgrace of belonging to our imperfectly evolved species in the first place. People who had just seen their neighbors swept away would tell the reporters that they knew a judgment had been coming, because the Christians had used alcohol and meat at Christmas or because ... well, yet again you can fill in the blanks for yourself. It was interesting, though, to notice that the Buddhists were often the worst. Contentedly patting an image of the chubby lord on her fencepost, a woman told the New York Times that those who were not similarly protected had been erased, while her house was still standing. There were enough such comments, almost identically phrased, to make it seem certain that the Buddhist authorities had been promulgating this consoling and insane and nasty view. That would not surprise me.”

ReligionChristianityAtheismBuddhismEvolutionAlcoholChristmasHuman RaceVegetarianismEarthquakesTsunamiSri LankaNatural DisastersThe New York Times2004 Earthquake And TsunamiChristian VegetarianismChristianity And Alcohol
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“The noble old synagogue had been profaned and turned into a stable by the Nazis, and left open to the elements by the Communists, at least after they had briefly employed it as a 'furniture facility.' It had then been vandalized and perhaps accidentally set aflame by incurious and callous local 'youths.' Only the well-crafted walls really stood, though a recent grant from the European Union had allowed a makeshift roof and some wooden scaffolding to hold up and enclose the shell until further notice. Adjacent were the remains of a mikvah bath for the ritual purification of women, and a kosher abattoir for the ritual slaughter of beasts: I had to feel that it was grotesque that these obscurantist relics were the only ones to have survived. In a corner of the yard lay a pile of smashed stones on which appeared inscriptions in Hebrew and sometimes Yiddish. These were all that remained of the gravestones. There wasn't a Jew left in the town, and there hadn't been one, said Mr. Kichler, since 1945.”

ReligionCommunismWorld War IiAnimalsJudaismEuropean UnionHebrewRelicsJewsNazisRitualsYiddishVandalism1945ObscurantismSynagoguesAnimal SacrificeTombstonesDesecrationWomen And ReligionWroclawAbattoirsAnimal SlaughterJerzy KichlerMikvahsWhite Stork SynagogueWomen In Judaism
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“The bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face, and there’s no point in any euphemism about it. What they abominate about ‘the west,’ to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don’t like and can’t defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state.”

ReligionOppressionFundamentalismRadical Islam
Book:The Quotable Hitchens from Alcohol to Zionism: The Very Best of Christopher Hitchens
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“Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are God. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are God.”

IfsThinkingInspirationalReligionWaterRealizingDogDrawsCatAffectionConclusionOwnersShelterCompelledMy DogCanineGreat PetDaily AtheistCat FoodPet Food
Book:The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
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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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“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.”

HumansMayDoeMotivationalTogetherReligionAtheismSlaveryBoundsAtheistBridesCrudeCleansingWarrantsMassacresEthnic CleansingMammalsTraffickingGod Is Not GreatSubtle Atheist
Book:God is Not Great
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“Though it is true we are the highest and smartest animals, ospreys have eyes we have calculated to be sixty times more powerful and sophisticated than our own and that blindness, often caused by microscopic parasites that are themselves miracles of ingenuity, is one of the oldest and most tragic disorders known to man. And why award the superior eye (or in the case of cat or bat, also the ear) to the inferior species.”

MenEyeReligionAnimalPowerfulKnownCasesHighestCatEarsMiracleSpeciesSuperiorsTragicAwardsDisorderSixtySophisticatedInferiorsBatsBlindnessIngenuityParasitesOspreys
Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume
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“It is a horrible idea that there is somebody who owns us, who makes us, who supervises us - waking and sleeping - who knows our thoughts, who can convict us of thought crime, thought crime, just for what we think, who can judge us while we sleep for things that might occur to us in our dreams, who can create us sick, as apparently we are - and then order us, on pain of eternal torture to be well again. To demand this, to wish this to be true is to wish to live as an abject slave.”

ThinkingKnowsWellsIdeasDreamMightPainReligionOrderWishSleepCrimeJudgingDemandEternalSickSlaveHorribleBeing TrueTortureWakingOur ThoughtsOur DreamsConvicts
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody - not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms - had the smallest idea of what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge. Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion.”

KnowsHumansChildrenMadeIdeasMatterTodayReligionOrderNaturalPeriodsDemandSpeciesEducatedMy ChildrenAtomsFearfulSmallestFoundersInfancyNatural OrderGod Is Not GreatPrehistorySubtle AtheistInfancy Is
Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume
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“The museums of medieval Europe, from Holland to Tuscany, are crammed with instruments and devices upon which the holy men labored devoutly, in order to see how long they could keep someone alive while being roasted. It is not needful to go into further details, but there were also religious books of instruction in this art, and guides for the detection of heresy by pain.”

MenLongArtBookPainReligionOrderReligiousAliveHolyEuropeInstrumentsDetailsGuidesDevicesMuseumsInstructionMedievalHeresyHollandDetectionHoly ManTuscanyReligious BooksMedieval Europe
Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume
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“The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.”

ThinkingWantFeelsMotivationalEarthPainJoyCertainReligionSongHellMysterySadnessAtheismLonelinessPositionAnd LoveAtheistGet UpParadiseMortalityDreadCreedsInsecureLeaving MeThere Is No GodCognitiveSirensTheistDissonanceThere Being No GodCognitive DissonanceSubtle AtheistSiren Song
Book:The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
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“The pre-history of our species is hag-ridden with episodes of nightmarish ignorance and calamity, for which religion used to identify, not just the wrong explanation, but the wrong culprit. Human sacrifices were made preeminently in times of epidemics, useless prayers were uttered, bogus miracles attested to, and scapegoats - such as Jews or heretics or witches - hunted down and burned.”

HumansMadeUsedReligionPrayerSacrificeIgnoranceMiracleDown AndSpeciesJewUselessExplanationWitchEpisodesBurnedCalamityEpidemicsHereticHuntedScapegoatCulprit
Book:The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
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“We are unlikely to cease making gods or inventing ceremonies to please them for as long as we are afraid of death, or of the dark, and for as long as we ­persist in self-­centeredness. That could be a lengthy stretch of time.”

LongSelfReligionDarkPleaseCeasePersistCeremonyUnlikelyInventingAfraid Of DeathSelf CenterednessLengthyCenteredness
Book:The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
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“The teachings of Christianity - from vicarious redemption to the love of enemies, no thought for the morrow need be taken, that no thrift or care or family or society or solidarity is necessary - these are immoral teachings that have done and continue to inflict untold moral and physical harm on our species. And until we outgrow this nonsense, we have no chance of emancipating ourselves.”

NeedsDoneCareReligionChanceMoralChristianityEnemyTakenAtheismTeachingSpeciesHarmRedemptionNonsenseSolidarityImmoralMorrowThriftVicarious
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“[Religion] attacks us in our deepest integrity - the core of our self-respect. Religion says that we would not know right from wrong, we would not know an evil, wicked act from a decent human act without divine permission, without divine authority or without, even worse, either the fear of a divine punishment or the hope of a divine reward. It strips us of the right to make our own determination, as all humans always have, about what is and what is not a right human action.”

KnowsHumansSelfActionReligionEvilAtheismDivineIntegrityAuthorityDeterminationRewardsCorePunishmentDecentWickedSelf RespectPermissionHuman Actions
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would think-though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one-that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.”

ThinkingKnowsHumansChildrenSeemsTodayReligionOrderNaturalHellConnectionsFellowsEducatedMy ChildrenFoundersNatural OrderGod Is Not GreatUninterestedSubtle Atheist
Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume
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“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
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