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Christopher Hitchens Quotes - Page 11

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A sort of moral blackmail is exerted from both poles. The underclass, one gathers, should be dulled with charity and welfare provision lest it turn nasty. The upper class must likewise be conciliated by vast handouts,

A sort of moral blackmail is exerted from both poles. The underclass, one gathers, should be dulled with charity and welfare provision lest it turn nasty. The upper class must likewise be conciliated by vast handouts, lest it lose the "incentive" to go on generating wealth.

Christopher Hitchens
Class, Goes On, Charity
Christopher Hitchens (2014). “Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports”, p.391, Atlantic Books Ltd

Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way — because it’s had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.

Christopher Hitchens
Strong, Believe, Years

Part of the function of memory is to forget; the omni-retentive mind will break down and produce at best an idiot savant who can recite a telephone book, and at worst a person to whom every grudge and slight is as yesterday's.

Christopher Hitchens
Memories, Book, Yesterday
Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays”, p.109, Atlantic Books Ltd

How do I know that I know this, except that I've always been taught this and never heard anything else? [...] How sure am I of my own views? Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus, and the feeling that whatever you think you're bound to be okay, because you're in the safely moral majority.

Christopher Hitchens
Thinking, Views, Feelings
"Christopher Hitchens: 'Freedom of speech means freedom to hate'". Christopher Hitchens' remarks at University of Toronto's Hart House Debating Club, blog.skepticallibertarian.com. November 2006.

Islam is at once the most and the least interesting of the world's monotheisms. It builds upon its primitive Jewish and Christian predecessors, selecting a chunk here and a shard there, and thus if these fall, it partly falls also.

Christopher Hitchens
Christian, Fall, Interesting
Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.90, Atlantic Books Ltd

In one way, I suppose, I have been 'in denial' for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.

Christopher Hitchens
Light, Giving, Lovely
Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Mortality”, p.13, Atlantic Books Ltd

Virtue and merit can become their opposites if they are exacted or compelled.

Christopher Hitchens
Opposites, Merit, Virtue
Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.139, Basic Books

I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously.

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Composing, Sentences
Simon Cottee, Thomas Cushman, Christopher Hitchens (2008). “Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left”, p.5298, NYU Press

Beautiful sentences pop into my head. Beautiful sentences that aren't always absolutely accurate. Then, I have to choose between the beautiful sentence and being absolutely accurate. It can be a difficult choice.

Christopher Hitchens
Beautiful, Difficult Choices, Pops

What word or expression do you most overuse? Re-reading a collection of my stuff, I was rather startled to find that it was 'perhaps.

Christopher Hitchens
Reading, Expression, Stuff
Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch-22: A Memoir”, p.252, Hachette UK

I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.

Christopher Hitchens
Country, Taken, Order

The (Catholic) church, as far as I know, has not endorsed any war as just since it supported General Franco's invasion of Spain to destroy the Spanish republic with a Muslim mercenary army in the thirties, on the side of Hitler.

Christopher Hitchens
War, Army, Catholic
"Tim Russert" (Talk-Show on CNBC), September 25, 2004.

What they [the 9/11 attackers] abominate about 'the west', to put it in a phrase, is not what western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state.

Christopher Hitchens
Phrases, West, Inquiry

I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: 'If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.' Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

Christopher Hitchens
Doe, Slavery, Tests
Christopher Hitchens (2011). “Arguably”, p.410, Atlantic Books Ltd

You have to choose your future regrets.

Christopher Hitchens
Regret, Your Future
"Christopher Hitchens: 'You have to choose your future regrets'". Interview With Andrew Anthony, www.theguardian.com. November 13, 2010.

George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism.

Christopher Hitchens
Mistake, Black And White, Moral Absolutism
Simon Cottee, Thomas Cushman, Christopher Hitchens (2008). “Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left”, p.5104, NYU Press

Evolution has meant that our prefrontal lobes are too small, our adrenal glands are too big, and our reproductive organs apparently designed by committee; a recipe which, alone or in combination, is very certain to lead to some unhappiness and disorder.

Christopher Hitchens
Adrenal Glands, Recipes, Evolution
Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.16, Atlantic Books Ltd

The most educated person in the world now has to admit-- I shall not say confess-- that he or she knows less and less but at least knows less and less about more and more.

Christopher Hitchens
World, Educated, Persons
Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.12, Atlantic Books Ltd

Three words for those who want to put the Christ back in Christmas: Jingle Bell Rock.

Christopher Hitchens
Rocks, Jingles, Three
Christopher Hitchens (2015). “And Yet ...: Essays”, p.285, Signal

You should be nicer to him,' a schoolmate had once said to me of some awfully ill-favored boy. 'He has no friends.' This, I realized with a pang of pity that I can still remember, was only true as long as everybody agreed to it.

Christopher Hitchens
Bullying, Boys, Long
Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.306, Atlantic Books Ltd

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.

Christopher Hitchens
Atheist, Thinking, Long
Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.307, Atlantic Books Ltd

I say 'Merry Christmas' to people I don't know, or to people I know are Christians. I say 'Happy Hanukkah' to people I know to be or suspect to be Jewish. And I don't say 'Happy Kwanzaa,' because I think African Americans get enough insults all year round.

Christopher Hitchens
Christian, Merry Christmas, Thinking
"Christmas with Christopher Hitchens". Interview With Gregg Lagambina, www.avclub.com. December 20, 2007.

Urging humans to be superhumans, on pain of death and torture, is the urging of terrible self-abasement at their repeated and inevitable failure to keep the rules.

Christopher Hitchens
Atheist, Pain, Self
Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.152, Atlantic Books Ltd

Suddenly that it was as dangerous to be in America as it was to be overseas. So that the false distinction that's made by the anti-war movement between being over there and over here was exposed for all to see as an illusion. Although a number of people, a large amount of people still share in it. In other words, when I've been in Iraq or Afghanistan, I've probably been safer because I can carry a weapon if I have to, than my wife and daughter are living in Washington.

Christopher Hitchens
Daughter, War, Iraq
Source: www.npr.org

At the evident risk of seeming ridiculous, I want to begin by saying that I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously. I hope this isn't too melodramatic or self-centred a way of saying that I attempt to write as if I did not care what reviewers said, what peers thought, or what prevailing opinions may be.

Christopher Hitchens
Writing, Self, Risk

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