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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

To ‘choose’ dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Experience Faith Reach 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
Well, to the people who pray for me to not only have an agonising death, but then be reborn to have an agonising and horrible eternal life of torture, I say, ‘Well, good on you. See you there.’
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Death People Prayer See Yourself
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 discovery there is no god is a great relief, because if there were, it would be like living in a celestial North Korea if there was one. You would never be able to escape.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Discover Escape God Greatness Oneself
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
I have no time to waste on this planet being told what to do by those who think that God has given them instructions.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

God Instruction Planet Time Wasted Time Yourself
Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Evidence Faith Give Up Ourselves Poison Reason Religion Respect
My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can’t prove it, but you can’t disprove it either.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Civilization Desire Ground Myself View
The easiest way to establish a dictatorship is to claim you are God’s representative on earth.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Earth Easy Establishment God Representation Way
Endless praise and adoration, limitless abnegation and abjection of self; a celestial North Korea.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

End Limitation Praise
Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, religion no longer offers an explanation for anything important.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Important Microscope Offering Thankful
The man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

God Instruction Man Prayer Right Thinking Yourself
Arguments that explain everything explain nothing.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Argument Explanation
I’m not afraid of being dead, that’s to say there’s nothing to be afraid of. I won’t know I’m dead, would be my strong conviction. And if I find that I’m alive in any way at all, that’ll be a pleasant surprise. I quite like surprises.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Afraid Death Myself Quite Strong
I burned the candle at both ends and it often gave a lovely light.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Burn Candle End Light Love Myself

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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