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Christopher Hitchens Quotes - Page 4

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To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in

To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away.

Christopher Hitchens
Daughter, Running, Atheist
"Hitch-22: A Memoir". Book by Christopher Hitchens, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 20, 2010.

One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human pre-history where nobody - not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms - had the smallest idea what was going on.

Christopher Hitchens
Ideas, Infancy Is, Matter
Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.49, Atlantic Books Ltd

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

Christopher Hitchens
Character, Accomplishment, Moral
Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.127, Atlantic Books Ltd

The moment of near despair is quite often the moment that precedes courage.

Christopher Hitchens
Despair, Moments
Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.86, Basic Books

The true essence of a dictatorship is in fact not its regularity but its unpredictability and caprice; those who live under it must never be able to relax, must never be quite sure if they have followed the rules correctly or not.

Christopher Hitchens
Essence, Relax, Able
Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.55, Atlantic Books Ltd

In some ways I feel sorry for racists and for religious fanatics, because they so much miss the point of being human, and deserve a sort of pity. But then I harden my heart, and decide to hate them all the more, because of the misery they inflict and because of the contemptible excuses they advance for doing so.

Christopher Hitchens
Religious, Sorry, Hate
Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.109, Basic Books

Who are your favourite heroines in real life? The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran who risk their lives and their beauty to defy the foulness of theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi as their ideal feminine model.

Christopher Hitchens
Real, Iran, Iraq
"Hitch-22: A Memoir". Book by Christopher Hitchens, 2010.

The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books.

Christopher Hitchens
Book, Together, Holy

The one thing that the racist can never manage is anything like discrimination: he is indiscriminate by definition.

Christopher Hitchens
Racist, Definitions, Discrimination
Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.241, Atlantic Books Ltd

Here’s someone who says there’s no such thing, it’s all intelligent design. How sure am I of my own views? Don’t take refuge in the false security of consensus, and the feeling that whatever you think you’re bound to be okay, because you’re in the safely moral majority.

Christopher Hitchens
Refuge, Consensus, Security
"Christopher Hitchens: 'Freedom of speech means freedom to hate'". blog.skepticallibertarian.com. September 30, 2014.

Ever since I discovered that my god given male member was going to give me no peace, I decided to give it no rest in return.

Christopher Hitchens
Giving, Males, Return

In order to be a part of the totalitarian mind-set, it is not necessary to wear a uniform or carry a club or a whip. It is only necessary to wish for your own subjection, and to delight in the subjection of others.

Christopher Hitchens
Order, Mind, Wish
Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.166, Atlantic Books Ltd

To the dumb question, 'Why me?' the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply, 'Why not?'

Christopher Hitchens
Dumb, Cosmos, Why Not
Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Mortality”, p.14, Atlantic Books Ltd

An old joke has an Oxford professor meeting an American former graduate student and asking him what he's working on these days. 'My thesis is on the survival of the class system in the United States.' 'Oh really, that's interesting: one didn't think there was a class system in the United States.' 'Nobody does. That's how it survives.

Christopher Hitchens
Thinking, Class, Oxford
Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.216, Atlantic Books Ltd

I'm a member of no party. I have no ideology. I'm a rationalist. I do what I can in the international struggle between science and reason and the barbarism, superstition and stupidity that's all around us.

Christopher Hitchens
Party, Struggle, Stupidity
Source: www.usatoday.com

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.

Christopher Hitchens
Atheist, Real, Godly

The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism.

Christopher Hitchens
Atheist, Atheism, Cognitive Dissonance
Christopher Hitchens (2007). “The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever”, p.480, Da Capo Press

Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of 'the flock.

Christopher Hitchens
Atheist, Atheism, Christianity
Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.38, Atlantic Books Ltd

The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.

Christopher Hitchens
Religious, Pluralism Is, Political
Christopher Hitchens (2014). “Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere”, p.104, Atlantic Books Ltd

Religion makes kind people say unkind things: "I must prove my faith, so mutilate the genitals of my children." They wouldn't do that if God didn't tell them to do so.

Christopher Hitchens
Children, People, Kind
Source: www.wanliss.com

If the Qur'an was the word of God, it had been dictated on a very bad day.

Christopher Hitchens
Bad Day, Islam, Word Of God
Free Inquiry Magazine, Volume 21, No. 4, Fall 2001.

In ridiculing a pathetic human fallacy, which seeks explanation where none need be sought and which multiplies unnecessary assumptions, one should not mimic primitive ontology in order to challenge it. Better to dispose of the needless assumption altogether. This holds true for everything from Noah's flood to the Holocaust.

Christopher Hitchens
Atheist, Order, Holocaust

Jesus, it is true, shows no personal interest in gain, but he does speak of treasure in heaven and even of mansions as an inducement to follow him. Is it not further true that all religions down the ages have shown a keen interest in the amassment of material goods in the real world?

Christopher Hitchens
Jesus, Real, Heaven
Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.114, Atlantic Books Ltd

I became a journalist because I didn't want to have to rely on the press for information... I only read it to make sure of whatever everyone else thinks is going on, because it's useful to know what people think is the news.

Christopher Hitchens
Thinking, People, News

Time spent arguing with the faithful is, oddly enough, almost never wasted.

Christopher Hitchens
Time, Faithful, Arguing
Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.65, Basic Books

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