Quote

Thus, though I dislike to differ with such a great man, Voltaire was simply ludicrous when he said that if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. The human invention of god is the problem to begin with.

Christopher Hitchens

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Great
Begin
Ludicrous
Would
Exist
Differ
Men
Necessary
Invent
Simply
Dislike
Though
Invention
Problem
Atheist
Human
Thus
Humans
Atheism
Voltaire

More quotes by Christopher Hitchens

Image
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.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things... one of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
The mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
I wrote a piece from North Korea called Visit to a Small Planet which is a line I stole from a play of Gore Vidal's, because it did seem to me as if I had left this planet completely to go on this visit to the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, and it was as if coming back from another spatial body altogether.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
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.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
The easiest way to establish a dictatorship is to claim you are God's representative on earth.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
The trade-off between freedom and security, so often proposed so seductively, very often leads to the loss of both.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
I don’t have a body, I am a body.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
I vote and I do jury duty.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Billy Graham is a boring, racist charlatan.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
There are two clocks ticking in Iran. One is the democracy movement clock which is ticking now faster than it was but it's got a lot of catching up to do. And then there's the clock that's ticking towards a nuclear weaponry.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
It's called faith because it's not knowledge.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
What happens to the faith healer and the shaman when any poor citizen can see the full effect of drugs or surgeries, administered without ceremonies or mystifications? Roughly the same thing as happens to the rainmaker when the climatologist turns up, or to the diviner from the heavens when schoolteachers get hold of elementary telescopes.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
The faithful believe that certain truths have been 'revealed.' The skeptics and secularists believe that truth is only to be sought by free inquiry and trial and error. Only one of those positions is dogmatic.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
The amazing fact is that America is founded on a document. It's a work in progress. It can be tested by each generation.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
You can't have occupation and human rights.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
What I used to say to people, when I was much more engagé myself, is that you can't be apolitical. It will come and get you. It's not that you shouldn't be neutral. It's that you won't be able to stay neutral.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
It was not for the sake of oil that the risky decision to cease this corrupt coexistence was made. But at least now the Iraqi people have a chance of controlling their own main resource, and it will be our task to ensure that the funding and revenue are transparent instead of opaque.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.
Christopher Hitchens