Christopher Hitchens Quotes

43 quotes

English American author and journalist (1949–2011)

“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.”

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

on Philosophy

"The two things he most valued, which is to say liberty and equality, were not natural allies."

on Philosophy

"The one thing that the racist can never manage is anything like discrimination: he is indiscriminate by definition."

on Truth

"To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid."

on Faith

"To remember friendship is to recall those conversations that it seemed a sin to break off"

on Relationships

"What better way for a ruling class to claim and hold power than to pose as the defenders of the nation."

on Philosophy

"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."

on Philosophy

"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."

on Philosophy

"The people who must never have power are the humorless. To impossible certainties of rectitude they ally tedium and uniformity."

on Philosophy

"To the dumb question "Why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: why not?"

on Philosophy

"Thus in order to be a "radical" one must be open to the possibility that one's own core assumptions are misconceived."

on Philosophy

"We live only a few conscious decades, and we fret ourselves enough for several lifetimes."

on Life

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law."

on Philosophy

"The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind."

on Philosophy

"[T]hose who willed the means and wished the ends are not absolved from guilt by the refusal of reality to match their schemes."

on Philosophy

"A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realisation that you can't make old friends."

on Friendship

"You can't have occupation and human rights."

on Philosophy

"Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it."

on Philosophy

"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?"

on Philosophy

"I don't think it's possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor."

on Philosophy