black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation – is that good for the world?

Christopher Hitchens

Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Human Pattern Seek Theory Willing
Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Astronomy End Philosophy Place Religion
The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Book Holy Human Togetherness
The noble title of “dissident” must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Disagreement Risk Sacrifice Title
It’s called faith because it’s not knowledge.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Faith Knowledge Wisdom
I’m not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Atheist Harmful Hold Maintain Myself Positive Religion Truth
It is only those who hope to transform human beings who end up by burning them, like the waste product of a failed experiment.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Experiment Failure Hope Production Transformation
I am absolutely convinced that religion is the main source of hatred in this world.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Hate Myself Religion World
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.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Death Devil Enemy Myself Sympathy Time
The one unforgivable sin is to be boring.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Boredom Forgiveness Oneself Sin
Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, religion no longer offers an explanation for anything important.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Important Microscope Offering Thankful
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.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Around Conscious Fake Philosophy Question Way
Take the risk of thinking for yourself.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Risk Self Love Thinking Yourself
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

Appearance Believe Myself Sound Talk Thinking
If the Qur’an was the word of God, it had been dictated on a very bad day.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Bad Day God Word
Time spent arguing with the faithful is, oddly enough, almost never wasted.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Argument Enough Faith Time Wasted Time
There’s been some research in cognitive science, I’m told, that discloses that there have always been perhaps 10 to 15 percent of people who are, as Pascal puts it, so made that they cannot believe. To us, when people talk about faith, it’s white noise.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Faith Noise People Research Science White
Of course we have free will because we have no choice but to have it.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Choice Freedom Human Willing
I learned that to be amusing was not to be frivolous and that language – always the language – was the magic key as much to prose as to poetry.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Key Language Learning Magic Myself Poetry
There is no such thing as closure, and it wouldn’t be worth having if it were available, because all it would mean is that something that was quite an important part of you had gone numb.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Available Important Quite Worth Yourself
High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Accomplishment Character Condition Moral
The faithful believe that certain truths have been ‘revealed.’ The skeptics and secularists believe that truth is only to be sought by free inquiry and trial and error. Only one of those positions is dogmatic.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Believe Faith Freedom Oneself Position Reveal Truth
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.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Discrimination Human Ourselves Slave Togetherness
I burned the candle at both ends and it often gave a lovely light.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Burn Candle End Light Love Myself
Some people say that without God, people would give themselves permission to do anything. [Yet] only with God, only with the view that God’s on your side, can people give themselves permission to do things that otherwise would be called satanic.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Devil God People Permission Side View
Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Conclusion Religion Right Wrong
I don’t think it’s possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Humor Possible Thinking Tragedy

To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation – is that good for the world?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation – is that good for the world?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Christopher Hitchens Quotes