86 result(s) for Christopher Hitchens Quotes.
"Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god."
"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love."
"Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest."
"The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that 'if English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me.'"
"What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof."
"Religion is part of the human make-up. It’s also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy."
"If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings, I say, 'I'm still waiting to hear what your point is.' "
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"Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse."
"If you want to be thought a liar, always tell the truth."
"The four most over-rated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex, and picnics."
"The cure for poverty has a name, in fact: it's called the empowerment of women. If you give women some control over the rate at which they reproduce, if you give them some say, take them off the animal cycle of reproduction to which nature and some religious doctrine condemns them, and then if you throw in a handful of seeds perhaps and some credit, the floor of everything in that village, not just poverty, but education, health, and optimism will increase. It doesn't matter; try to do that in Bangladesh, try to do it in Bolivia, it works. It works all the time."
"Use your education, your knowledge, and your common sense. Think for yourself. Question authority. Don’t follow the crowd."
"Time spent arguing is, oddly enough, almost never wasted."
"A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do, but what he should do."
"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others."
"It's not true that you shouldn't say you're on a diet because you'll be a bore. You won't be a bore - you'll be the envy of all the other porcine, pusillanimous creatures in the room."
"Humans are pattern-seeking story-telling animals, and we are quite facile in the telling of tales about the patterns we find."
"Everyone has a book in them, which is exactly where it should remain."
"I have always found it quaint, and rather touching, that there is a movement in the U.S. that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough."
"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."
"Heavenly happiness could not be too much for me."
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"I don't think people should be thrown into jail for smoking marijuana."
"It is not those who argue for moral excellence who are most dangerous; it is those who believe they have achieved it."
"Thanks to the newly -- or intact -- brutal inequality of the last 20 years, the middle class still has a stake and wealth and power -- and is not being bled utterly by the corporate sector as it was in earlier times."
"Write any sentence that begins 'God is' and you will see why the great syntactician still has work to do."
"It is always worth examining any claim that there are such agencies that they can override the imperial republic and the messianic democracy."
"Religion is not just a failure of reason, but it is also a moral failure."
"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."
"Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it."
"Faith is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals."
"Without the free personality of thought, science would have no independence whatever, and this independence is the key to its long continuous lines of advance."
"My own opinion is enough for me, and I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, anyplace, anytime. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line, and kiss my ass."
"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."
"Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of ‘the flock.’"
"To be an unbeliever is not to be someone who believes that belief is false, it is to be someone who doesn't believe that belief is true."
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"Go check the safe your parents keep for the family silver. It has two kinds of people; a burglar's nightmare, and a mathematician."
"Human life is too rich and various to be contained within limits or imaginary prescriptions."
"To terrify children with the image of Hell... to consider women an inferior creation. Is that good for the world?"
"Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods."
"Remember the love of your English ancestors, for we are the true bearers of the enlightenment as well as of the common law."
"There are all kinds of stupid people that annoy me but what annoys me most is a lazy argument."
"You can't say that there is no liberty, even as you say you are relieved to have been saved."
"Only one secure foundation: a genuine, deep, abiding respect for the constitutional structure and processes of our self-governing republic."
"Eternal life. How kind of God. I couldn't have thought of that."
"Challenge everything you see in the media. Question everything."
"The noble title of 'dissident' must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement."
"I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to admit evidence."
"Laughter can be the most heartless sound of all, and that the final human freedom, to choose your attitude in any given set of circumstances, is the most important and potentially the most empowering of all"
"But even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own."
"The most intense joy, lies not in the having, but in the desire, delight and desire for a thing is more pleasurable than having it."
"To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation – is that good for the world?"
"We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid."
"I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves."
"Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases, that's where it should stay."
"There are no atheists in foxholes isn't an argument against atheism; it's an argument against foxholes."
"Humans must embrace just the thought of their own promised blissful state and awaken themselves from the nightmare of superstition and false belief."
"If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings, I say, ‘I'm still waiting to hear what your point is.'"
"Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated."
"I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn't ever have to rely on the press for my information."
"Fewer things are sadder than the truly monstrous."
"To the dumb question, 'Why me?' the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: why not?"
"What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition."
"What is it you most dislike? Poverty, and the sheer unutterable waste of human potential."
"I'm a member of no party. I have no ideology. I'm a rationalist."
"Make Orwell fiction again."
"A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so."
"The vote is crucial because it is the only acknowledgment that the citizen has a stake in the state."
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."
"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself."
"The four most overrated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex, and picnics."
"Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason."
"Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods."
"The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell."
"I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information."
"To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?"
"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks."
"A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless'."
"Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way."
"Humans may be the only species that seeks meaning in life but given that fact that meaning—and indeed the power to give meaning to meaningless—it's our responsibility to sustain the illusion."
"It's not true that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. They can learn them, they just can't do them."
"The fine line between cultural criticism and parochial nitpicking is about to be crossed."
"There can be no progress without head-on confrontation."
"Mother Theresa was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from god. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty—empowerment."
"Bill Clinton is not a full-time President of the United States, he is only part-time, and that's when he's not playing golf."
"The consequences of 'faith' are far more dangerous than any consequentialism derived from careful reasoning."
"I try to deny myself any illusions and I try to stretch myself as much as possible—any illusion and I try to stretch myself as much as possible, and if I'm really true to that, then there's some kind of transformation."
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