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We owe a huge debt to Galileo for emancipating us all from the stupid belief in an Earth-centered or man-centered (let alone God-centered) system. He quite literally taught us our place and allowed us to go on to make extraordinary advances in knowledge.

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
Make
Taught
Literally
Men
System
Atheist
Quite
Allowed
Alone
Debt
Belief
Extraordinary
Emancipating
Knowledge
Atheism
Galileo
Place
Stupid
Advances
Earth
Huge
Centered

More quotes by Christopher Hitchens

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There are days when I miss my old convictions as if they were an amputated limb. But in general I feel better, and no less radical, and you will feel better too, I guarantee, once you leave hold of the doctrinaire and allow your chainless mind to do its own thinking.
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I can never quite decide whether the anti-Columbus movement is merely risible or faintly sinister. It is sinister, though, because it is an ignorant celebration of stasis and backwardness, with an unpleasant tinge of self-hatred.
Christopher Hitchens
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Talking, it seemed to me, was the point of adult existence.
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For me, the life of the angler is an almost flawless example of how not to have a good time.
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Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.
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I'm a member of no party. I have no ideology. I'm a rationalist. I do what I can in the international struggle between science and reason and the barbarism, superstition and stupidity that's all around us.
Christopher Hitchens
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The atheist proposition is the following - most of the time - it may not be said that there is no god it may be said that there is no reason to think that there is one.
Christopher Hitchens
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The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.
Christopher Hitchens
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The obsession with gold, actually and politically, occurs among those who regard economics as a branch of morality. Gold is solid, gold is durable, gold is rare, gold is even (in certain very peculiar circumstances) convertible. To believe in thrift, solidity and soundness is to believe in some way in the properties of gold.
Christopher Hitchens
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I'm a single-issue voter, to get straight to the point. I'm really only interested in the candidate who's toughest and least apologetic when it comes to the confrontation with Islamic Jihadism.
Christopher Hitchens
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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
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I vote and I do jury duty.
Christopher Hitchens
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I'd like to prove to other people that it's not the end of everything to be diagnosed with cancer.
Christopher Hitchens
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Urging humans to be superhumans, on pain of death and torture, is the urging of terrible self-abasement at their repeated and inevitable failure to keep the rules.
Christopher Hitchens
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Henry Kissinger should have the door shut in his face by every decent person and should be shamed, ostracized and excluded.
Christopher Hitchens
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[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.
Christopher Hitchens
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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.
Christopher Hitchens
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Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self-centred and even solipsistic.
Christopher Hitchens
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Religion, it is true, still possesses the huge if cumbersome and unwieldy advantage of having come first.
Christopher Hitchens
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You know, you can make a small mistake in language or etiquette in Britain, or you could when I was younger, and really be made to feel it, and it's the flick of a lash, but it would sting, and especially at school where there's not much privacy, and so on. You could, yes, undoubtedly be made to feel crushed.
Christopher Hitchens