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No school of philosophy has ever solved this question of whether being determines consciousness or the other way around. It may be a false antithesis.

Christopher Hitchens

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Christopher Hitchens
Age: 62 †
Born: 1949
Born: April 13
Died: 2011
Died: December 15
Author
Autobiographer
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Political Scientist
Writer
Portsmouth
England
Christopher Eric Hitchens
Ever
Conscious
Way
Consciousness
Question
Philosophy
Antithesis
Whether
Determines
Around
Solved
School
False
May
Determine

More quotes by Christopher Hitchens

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We are unlikely to cease making gods or inventing ceremonies to please them for as long as we are afraid of death, or of the dark, and for as long as we ­persist in self-­centeredness. That could be a lengthy stretch of time.
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What a country, and what a culture, when the liberals cry before they are hurt, and the reactionaries pose as brave nonconformists, while the radicals make a fetish of their own jokey irrelevance.
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I was taught very early on that the state can be, and is, a liar and a murderer.
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History is a tragegy, not a morality tale.
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The great thing about the United States and the historically magnetic effect it has had on a lot of people like me is its generosity, to put it simply.
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Allow a friend to believe in a bogus prospectus or a false promise and you cease, after a short while, to be a friend at all.
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The press is still investing itself, it seems to me, in a sort of cynicism. It comes out better for them if they can predict hard times, bogging down, sniping, attrition.
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I'm quite convinced in my own mind that those who were arguing that [the need to intervene in Iraq] was a more immediate one than some believed - were I'm sure convinced that they were right on fact, I don't think they were making it up. So as to lying, I don't think it has been established that any lies were told.
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Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.
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When I am at home, I never go near the synagogue unless, say, there is a bar or bat mitzvah involving the children of friends. But when I am traveling, in a country where Jewish life is scarce or endangered, I often make a visit to the shul.
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The search for Nirvana, like the search for Utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle.
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Do not imagine that you can escape judgment if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than with a knife.
Christopher Hitchens
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At Oxford one was positively encouraged to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied.
Christopher Hitchens
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Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.
Christopher Hitchens
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Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.
Christopher Hitchens
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The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind.
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Suppose there were groups of secularists at hospitals who went round the terminally ill and urged them to adopt atheism: 'Don't be a mug all your life. Make your last days the best ones. People might suppose this was in poor taste.
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It [defending Salmon Rushdie] was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual and the defense of free expression.
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I've had some dark nights of the soul, of course, but giving in to depression would be a sellout, a defeat.
Christopher Hitchens
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The easiest way to establish a dictatorship is to claim you are God's representative on earth.
Christopher Hitchens