The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENSOne of the most repellent spectacles at election times is the pretense of piety on the part of people running for office.
More Christopher Hitchens Quotes
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What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
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No school of philosophy has ever solved this question of whether being determines consciousness or the other way around. It may be a false antithesis.
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Arguments that explain everything explain nothing.
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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.
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The one unforgivable sin is to be boring.
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The noble title of “dissident” must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement.
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The easiest way to establish a dictatorship is to claim you are God’s representative on earth.
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Today I want to puke when I hear the word ‘radical’ applied so slothfully and stupidly to Islamist murderers; the most plainly reactionary people in the world.
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How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.
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I’m an atheist. I’m not neutral about religion, I’m hostile to it. I think it is a positively bad idea, not just a false one. And I mean not just organized religion, but religious belief itself.
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I leave it to the faithful to burn each other’s churches and mosques and synagogues, which they can be always relied upon to do.
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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.
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To ‘choose’ dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.
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What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.
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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.
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Why do humans exist? A major part of the answer: because Pikaia Gracilens survived the Burgess decimation.
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Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.
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I sympathize afresh with the mighty Voltaire who, when badgered on his deathbed and urged to renounce the devil, murmured that this was no time to be making enemies.
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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.
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I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.
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My own opinion is enough for me. And I claim the right to defend it against any consensus, any majority anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line and kiss my ass.
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The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.
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I burned the candle at both ends and it often gave a lovely light.
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
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She’s got no charisma of any kind [but] I can imagine her being mildly useful to a low-rank porn director.
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Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of ‘the flock.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS