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I burned the candle at both ends and it often gave a lovely light.

Christopher Hitchens

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

Accomplishment Character Condition Moral
It’s called faith because it’s not knowledge.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Faith Knowledge Wisdom
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 Cruelty Kind Myself People Religion
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
The gods that we’ve made are exactly the gods you’d expect to be made by a species that’s about half a chromosome away from being chimpanzee.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Expectation God Species
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
Endless praise and adoration, limitless abnegation and abjection of self; a celestial North Korea.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

End Limitation Praise
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
Those who are determined to be ‘offended’ will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Determination Enough Fantasy Mad Offend Possible
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
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 secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Politics Religious Secularism Simplicity Truth
Jesus makes large claims for his heavenly father but never mentions that his mother is or was a virgin, and is repeatedly very rude and coarse to her when she makes an appearance.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Appearance Father Heaven Herself Repeat
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
The search for Nirvana, like the search for Utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Anxiety Dangerous End Escape History Search Society
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
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
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
Those who want to be offended don’t have the right to try and close down the newspaper that offends them.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Offend Right
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’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
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
No one has the right to tell me what to do because he has a divine warrant.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Divine Himself Oneself Right
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

Discover God Myself Peace Return
What do you most value in your friends? Their continued existence.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Existence Friendship Value Yourself
Arguments that explain everything explain nothing.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Argument Explanation
One of the most repellent spectacles at election times is the pretense of piety on the part of people running for office.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Election Oneself People Run Time

I burned the candle at both ends and it often gave a lovely light.

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I burned the candle at both ends and it often gave a lovely light.

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