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The noble title of dissident must be earned rather than claimed it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement.

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
Mere
Dissident
Sacrifice
Dissidents
Risk
Claimed
Rather
Disagreement
Must
Earned
Title
Titles
Noble
Connotes

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The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.
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The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.
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Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that - or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation - is worth it to me. [It is] impossible for me to imagine having my life without going to those parties, without having those late nights, without that second bottle.
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The fragility of love is what is most at stake here—humanity's most crucial three-word avowal is often uttered only to find itself suddenly embarrassing or orphaned or isolated or ill-timed—but strangely enough it can work better as a literal or reassuring statement than a transcendent or numinous or ecstatic one.
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Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology.
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My own opinion is enough for me. And I claim the right to defend it against any consensus, any majority anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line and kiss my ass.
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Do I fear death? No, I am not afraid of being dead because there's nothing to be afraid of, I won't know it. I fear dying, of dying I feel a sense of waste about it and I fear a sordid death, where I am incapacitated or imbecilic at the end which isn't something to be afraid of, it's something to be terrified of.
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Endless praise and adoration, limitless abnegation and abjection of self a celestial North Korea.
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The diet book is one of those fool-and-money separation devices that seems, like roulette or slot machines, never to lose its power.
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To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning.
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Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.
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The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.
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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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You can be a Polish American, or an Arab American, or a Greek American but you can't be English American. Why not?
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And yet, I wake up every day to a sensation of pervading disgust and annoyance. I probably ought to carry around some kind of thermometer or other instrument, to keep checking that I am not falling prey to premature curmudgeonhood.
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The pornography of tough-mindedness, covert action, and preparedness for peace through strength has had a predictably hypnotic effect on the legislative branch, turning it from legal watchdog to lapdog.
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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.
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In the ordinary moral universe, the good will do the best they can, the worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.
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Name a moral statement or action, uttered or performed by a religious person that could not have been uttered or performed by an unbeliever.
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The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind.
Christopher Hitchens