More Christopher Hitchens Quotes

Contrarianism
The noble title of dissident must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacri
fice and risk rather than mere disagreement
I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn't ever have to rely on the press for
my information.
The finest fury is the most controlled.
There can be no progress without head-on confrontation.
Nonintervention does not mean that nothing happens. It means that something else
happens.
Ethics
To what faults do you feel most indulgent? To the ones that arise from urgent ma
terial needs.
I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: If slavery is not wrong, no
thing is wrong. Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then th
ere is no such thing as torture.
Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that coul
d not have been made or performed by a non-believer.
Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible, and demanding it at gunpoin
t.
The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.
You have to choose your future regrets.
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Reason
I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps e
ntitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse t
o keep their fantasies to themselves.
Exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.
Free Thinking
Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and
wisdom will come to you that way.
We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rathe
r than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or
outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inqui
ry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.
What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of raci
sm and superstition.
To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning.
The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it th
inks.
Raising Daughters
To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats e
vokes with his imperishable phrase `terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happil
y exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to
realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body.
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Alcohol
Cheap booze is a false economy.
Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provi
de what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when readin
g or writing.
Language
Flaubert was right when he said that our use of language is like a cracked kettl
e on which we bang out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we need t
o move the very stars to pity.
How ya doin'? I always think, What kind of a question is that?, and I always reply, A
bit early to tell.
Intellectuals
I am sometimes asked about the concept or definition of a `public intellectual,' and
though I find the whole idea faintly silly, I believe it should ideally mean th
at the person so identified is self-sustaining and autonomously financed.
Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay.
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Setting Expectations
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce eve
n your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a r
oar.
Kindness
You should be nicer to him, a schoolmate had once said to me of some awfully ill-f
avored boy. He has no friends. This, I realized with a pang of pity that I can sti
ll remember, was only true as long as everybody agreed to it.
Beware what you wish for, unless you have the grace to hope that your luck can b
e shared.
Heroism breaks its heart, and idealism its back, on the intransigence of the credulous
and the mediocre, manipulated by the cynical and the corrupt.
God, Faith, and Religion
[O]wners 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 shelt
er and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.
My so-far uncancerous throat . . . is not at all the only organ with which I hav
e blasphemed.
Suppose there were groups of secularists at hospitals who went round the termina
lly ill and urged them to adopt atheism: Don't be a mug all your life. Make your la
st days the best ones. People might suppose this was in poor taste.
There either is a god or there is not; there is a `design' or not.