Quotessence
Home / Authors / Peter Hitchens
Peter Hitchens

Peter Hitchens Quotes

Journalist

Filter quotes by topic

AllAnti TheismReligionUtopian SocialismUtopianismApologeticsChristian ApologeticsIdealismIfsPeopleThinking

Famous Peter Hitchens Quotes

“Without a belief in God and the soul, where is the oath? Without the oath, where is the obligation or the pressure to fulfill it? Where is the law that even kings must obey? Where is the Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus, or The bill of Rights? (All of which arose out of attempts to rule by lawless tyranny.) Where is the lifelong fidelity of husband and wife? Where is the safety of the innocent child growing in the womb? Where, in the end, is the safety for any of us from those currently bigger and stronger than we are? And how striking it is that such oaths we use to make us better, not worse.”

ReligionFaithBeliefExistenceMoralityReligion And PhiloshophyApologeticsChristian ApologeticsOathsAnti Theism
Book:The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith
Create image

“Among the favorite arguments of the irreligious, one that they almost invariably advance in their opening offensive in their attacks on faith is this: that conflicts fought in the name of religion are necessarily ABOUT religion. By saying this the irreligious hope to establish that religion is of itself the cause of conflict. This is a crude factual misunderstanding. Some conflicts fought in the name of religion are specifically religious. Many others are not, or cannot be so simply classified. The only general lesson that can be drawn from these differing wars is that Man is inclined to make war on Man when he thinks it will gain him power or wealth or land.”

WarReligionApologeticsWarsReligion And PhilosophyChristian ApologeticsAnti TheismThe Nature Of Man
Book:The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith
Create image

“Stalin and Kim made human idols of themselves because they believed, as utopian idealists always do, in the ultimate goodness of themselves and the unchallengeable rightness of their decisions. There was no higher power, and so there could be no higher law. If people disagreed with them, it was because those people were in some way defective--insane, malignant, or mercenary. The rulers could not tolerate actual religion, because they could not tolerate any rival authority or any rival source or judge of goodness, gratitude, and justice.”

CommunismTyrantsDictatorshipReligious IntoleranceStalinismStalinDictatorsUtopianismUtopian SocialismKim Jong Il
Author:Peter Hitchens
Create image

“Abortion is the only event that modern liberals think too violent and obscene to portray on TV. This is not because they are squeamish or prudish. It is because if people knew what Abortion really looked like, it would destroy their pretence that it is a civilized answer to the problem of what to do about unwanted babies.”

PeopleIfsThinkingProblemAnswersModernEventsTvsBabyViolentLiberalismAbortionCivilizedDestroyingUnwantedObscenePretencePortrayingAnti AbortionAgainst AbortionPrudishness
Author:Peter Hitchens
Create image

“Evolution is an unproven theory. If what its fundamentalist supporters believe is true, fishes decided to grow lungs and legs and walk up the beach. The idea is so comically daft that only one thing explains its survival-that lonely, frightened people wanted to expel God from the Universe because they found the idea that He exists profoundly uncomfortable.”

PeopleIfsBelieveIdeasWantedUniverseFoundGrowsWalksOne ThingTheoryEvolutionSurvivalLonelyDecidedFishesLegsBeachUncomfortableFrightenedSupporterLungsFundamentalistDaft
Author:Peter Hitchens
Create image