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Christopher Hitchens Quotes - Page 7

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To reflect upon the event horizon is a great deal more awe-inspiring than a burning bush or a wooden statue that weeps or pees or bleeds.

To reflect upon the event horizon is a great deal more awe-inspiring than a burning bush or a wooden statue that weeps or pees or bleeds.

Christopher Hitchens
Religion, Events, Horizon

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.

Christopher Hitchens
Teaching, Taken, Enemy

So there's nothing more vulgar than the sound of someone saying, God Bless America, someone who doesn't really believe it, but he thinks it will make him look good to other people. I think it's the most nauseating spectacle.

Christopher Hitchens
Believe, Thinking, America
Source: www.npr.org

There is a limit to the success of conservative populism and the exploitation of "little guy" or "silent majority" rhetoric, and it is very often reached because of the emaciated, corrupted personalities of the demagogues themselves.

Christopher Hitchens
Personality, Guy, Majority
Christopher Hitchens (2014). “For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports”, p.271, Atlantic Books Ltd

By trying to adjust to the findings that it once tried so viciously to ban and repress, religion has only succeeded in restating the same questions that undermined it in earlier epochs. What kind of designer or creator is so wasteful and capricious and approximate? What kind of designer or creator is so cruel and indifferent? And - most of all - what kind of designer or creator only chooses to "reveal" himself to semi-stupefied peasants in desert regions?

Christopher Hitchens
Trying, Desert, Kind
Christopher Hitchens (2007). “The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever”, p.18, Da Capo Press

I say that homosexuality is not just a form of sex, it's a form of love, and it deserves our respect for that reason.

Christopher Hitchens
Sex, Lgbt, Gay Pride

The whole reason for the success of Dr. King's civil-rights movement was that it was not a movement for itself. The civil-rights movement understood very clearly, and stated very beautifully, that it was a question of humanism, not a sectarian movement at all.

Christopher Hitchens
Kings, Rights, Drs
Christopher Hitchens (2017). “Christopher Hitchens: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations”, p.49, Melville House

If I was told to sacrifice something to prove my devotion to God, if I was told to do what all monotheists are told to do and admire the man who said 'Yes I'll gut my kid to show my love of God.'

Christopher Hitchens
Kids, Sacrifice, Men
"Thank you, Mr. Hitchens" by Raheem Kassam, www.thecommentator.com. December 16, 2011.

The god of Moses would call for other tribes, including his favorite one, to suffer massacre and plague and even extirpation, but when the grave closed over his victims he was essentially finished with them unless he remembered to curse their succeeding progeny. Not until the advent of the Prince of Peace do we hear of the ghastly idea of further punishing and torturing the dead.

Christopher Hitchens
Ideas, Suffering, Prince Of Peace
Christopher Hitchens (2007). “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything”, p.140, Hachette UK

No, nothing is sacred. And even if there were to be something called sacred, we mere primates wouldn't be able to decide which book or which idol or which city was the truly holy one. Thus, the only thing that should be upheld at all costs and without qualification is the right of free expression, because if that goes, then so do all other claims of right as well.

Christopher Hitchens
Book, Expression, Idols

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.

Christopher Hitchens
Atheist, Children, Believe

The mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made.

Christopher Hitchens
Men, Criticism, Made
Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.13, Atlantic Books Ltd

To remember friendship is to recall those conversations that it seemed a sin to break off

Christopher Hitchens
Break Off, Remember, Sin
Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Mortality”, p.34, Atlantic Books Ltd

Doubt, skepticism, innovation, and inquiry are the only means by which wonder, beauty, awe, and symmetry will be discovered.

Christopher Hitchens
Mean, Innovation, Doubt

The finest fury is the most controlled.

Christopher Hitchens
Finest, Fury, Controlled
Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays”, p.178, Atlantic Books Ltd

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.

Christopher Hitchens
Believe, School, Differences

Religion, it is true, still possesses the huge if cumbersome and unwieldy advantage of having come first.

Christopher Hitchens
Religion, Firsts, Advantage
Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.71, Atlantic Books Ltd

I want to urge you very strongly to travel as much as you can, and to evolve yourself as an internationalist. It's as important a part of your education as a radical as the reading of any book.

Christopher Hitchens
Travel, Book, Reading
Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.105, Basic Books

Indeed, it's futile to try and use Holy Scripture to support any political position. I deeply distrust anyone who does. Just look at what an Islamic Republic is like.

Christopher Hitchens
Atheist, Islamic, Support

You can only have one aim per debate.

Christopher Hitchens
Debate, Aim
Christopher Hitchens (2017). “Christopher Hitchens: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations”, p.107, Melville House

In a Pyongyang restaurant, don't ever ask for a doggie bag.

Christopher Hitchens
Bags, Restaurants, Asks
Christopher Hitchens (2004). “Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays”, p.375, Nation Books

I am a person of faith: I am a person who will believe practically anything on no evidence at all.

Christopher Hitchens
Believe, Evidence, Persons

The violence in the Bible is appalling.

Christopher Hitchens
Violence

Do I fear death? No, I am not afraid of being dead because there's nothing to be afraid of, I won't know it. I fear dying, of dying I feel a sense of waste about it and I fear a sordid death, where I am incapacitated or imbecilic at the end which isn't something to be afraid of, it's something to be terrified of.

Christopher Hitchens
Fear, Dying, Waste

I'm not particularly a feminist, but if you get women off the animal cycle of reproduction and give them some say in how many children they'll have, immediately the floor will rise.

Christopher Hitchens
Children, Animal, Giving
"The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever". Book by Christopher Hitchens, 2007.

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