“The people who must never have power are the humorless. To impossible certainties of rectitude they ally tedium and uniformity.”
More from Christopher Hitchens on Philosophy
“The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind.”
“The forces of piety have always and everywhere been the sworn enemy of the open mind and the open book.”
“It's probably a merciful thing that pain is impossible to describe from memory”
“There are times when it is conservative to be a revolutionary, when the world must be turned on its head in order to be stood on its feet.”
“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.”
“What better way for a ruling class to claim and hold power than to pose as the defenders of the nation.”
“I don't think it's possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.”
“How much vanity must be concealed – not too effectively at that – in order to pretend that one is the personal object of a divine plan?”
“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
“You can't have occupation and human rights.”
Others on Philosophy
Ludwig Wittgenstein
22 quotes“The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood.”
Nietzsche
22 quotes“One does not hate as long as one has a low esteem of someone, but only when one esteems him as an equal or a superior.”
Carl Jung
21 quotes“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”
Immanuel Kant
20 quotes“Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”
Heraclitus
19 quotes“All things flow nothing abides.”
H. L. Mencken
17 quotes“We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.”
C.S. Lewis
15 quotes“[Consciousness] is either inexplicable illusion, or else revelation.”
Samuel Beckett
14 quotes“The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.”
Napoleon
14 quotes“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
14 quotes“Consciousness is man's greatest misfortune, still I know that man loves it and will not exchange it for any satisfaction...”
Buddha
13 quotes“Doubt everything. Find your own light.”
Joseph Conrad
13 quotes“The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as the future.”