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Christopher Hitchens Quotes - Page 14

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You can't have occupation and human rights.

You can't have occupation and human rights.

Christopher Hitchens
Rights, Occupation, Human Rights

In one was, 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. But for precisely this reason, I can't see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how it's all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me.

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

Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. They don't do any good, but they don't necessarily do any harm. It's touching to be thought of in that way. It makes up for those who tell me that I've got my just desserts.

Christopher Hitchens
Prayer, Mean, Thinking
"Christopher Hitchens on his memoir, Hitch-22". "Hugh Hewitt Show", www.hughhewitt.com. July 13, 2010.

It was an axiom of "containment" that no part of the known world could be considered neutral. "Neutralism" was among the Cold Warriors' gravest curse words, applied with caustic hostility to India and even France. Those who were not with were against, subjected to intense economic and ideological and sometimes military pressure to fall into line.

Christopher Hitchens
Military, Fall, Warrior
Christopher Hitchens (2014). “For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports”, p.166, Atlantic Books Ltd

(Howard) Dean is a raving nut bag...a raving, sinister, demagogic nutbag...I and a few other people saw that he should be destroyed.

Christopher Hitchens
Nuts, People, Bags

Every campaign, Garry Wills once wrote, "taught Nixon the same lesson: mobilize resentment against those in power." History taught the same to many conservative and reactionary populist movements, whose real attitude to those in power and authority was one of a servile, envious, vicarious adoration.

Christopher Hitchens
Attitude, Real, Campaigns
Christopher Hitchens (2014). “For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports”, p.271, Atlantic Books Ltd

History is a tragegy, not a morality tale.

Christopher Hitchens
History, Morality, Tales

I don't think there's any need to have essays advocating selfishness among human beings; I don't know what your impression has been, but some things require no further reinforcement.

Christopher Hitchens
Thinking, Selfishness, Needs

Do not imagine that you can escape judgment if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than with a knife.

Christopher Hitchens
Knives, People, Judgment
Christopher Hitchens (2011). “Arguably”, p.384, Atlantic Books Ltd

As the many male victims of rape in the regime's disgusting jails can testify, this state-run pathology of sexual repression and sexual sadism is not content to degrade women only.

Christopher Hitchens
Running, Jail, Sadism
Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.1619, Atlantic Books Ltd

The rich world likes and wishes to believe that someone, somewhere, is doing something for the Third World. For this reason, it does not inquire too closely into the motives or practices of anyone who fulfills, however vicariously, this mandate.

Christopher Hitchens
Believe, Practice, Wish
Christopher Hitchens (1995). “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice”, p.49, Verso

A rule of thumb with humor; if you worry that you might be going too far, you have already not gone far enough. If everybody laughs, you have failed.

Christopher Hitchens
Laughing, Worry, Gone
Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.122, Basic Books

David Irving is not just a Fascist historian. He is also a great historian of Fascism.

Christopher Hitchens
Fascists, Fascism, Historian
"Hitler's Ghost". Vanity Fair, pages 72-74, www.fpp.co.uk. June 1996.

The term 'the American Left' is as near to being meaningless or nonsensical as any term could really be in politics. It isn't really a force in politics anymore. And it would do well to ask itself why that is.

Christopher Hitchens
Nonsensical, Force, Term

Name one moral action performed by a believer that could not have been done by a nonbeliever.

Christopher Hitchens
Names, Done, Action

I used to wish there was a useful term for those of us who thought American power should be used to remove psychopathic dictators.

Christopher Hitchens
Wish, Dictator, Used

Religion gets its morality from us. We don't get our morality from religion.

Christopher Hitchens
Religion, Morality

It's often a bad sign when people defend themselves against charges which haven't been made.

Christopher Hitchens
People, Made, Havens
Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays”, p.355, Atlantic Books Ltd

A point, like a joke, is a terrible thing to miss.

Christopher Hitchens
Missing, Terrible, Terrible Things
Christopher Hitchens (2011). “Arguably”, p.37, Atlantic Books Ltd

If anything qualifies as an irony of history it would be this: that Marx and Engels throughout the nineteenth century wrote about America the United States as the great country of the future, of freedom and equality and a good life for the working man, and a country of revolution and emancipation, and of Russia as the great country of despotism, backwardness, savagery and superstition.

Christopher Hitchens
Country, Good Life, Men
Source: www.heavenonearthdocumentary.com

You notice how liberals keep saying, 'If only Islam would have a Reformation' - it can't have one. It says it can't. It's extremely dangerous in that way.

Christopher Hitchens
Islam, Way, Dangerous
"Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

It is not that there are no certainties, it is that it is an absolute certainty that there are no certainties.

Christopher Hitchens
Absolute Certainty, Certainty, Absolutes
Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.1650, Atlantic Books Ltd

I make preparations both to live and to die every day, but with the emphasis on not dying, and on acting as if I was going to carry on living.

Christopher Hitchens
Preparation, Dying, Acting

How is the United States at once the most conservative and commercial AND the most revolutionary society on Earth?

Christopher Hitchens
United States, Earth, Conservative
Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.192, Atlantic Books Ltd

The taming and domestication of religion is one of the unceasing chores of civilization.

Christopher Hitchens
Civilization, Taming, Chores
"Free Exercise of Religion? No, Thanks" by Christopher Hitchens, www.slate.com. September 6, 2010.

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