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Very often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the course when things are boring, to run the risk of repeating an old argument just one more time, or of going one more round with a hostile or (much worse) indifferent audience.

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
People
Causes
Boring
Hostile
Audience
Argument
Indifferent
Often
Worse
Precisely
Running
Cause
Willingness
Going
Stay
Round
Much
Risk
Rounds
Things
Courses
Test
Repeating
Time
Course
Tests
Allegiance

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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.
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What better way for a ruling class to claim and hold power than to pose as the defenders of the nation.
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Religion fosters servility and solipsism.
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What they [the 9/11 attackers] abominate about 'the west', to put it in a phrase, is not what western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state.
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We know that our life is essentially tragic. I'm absolutely not for handing over that very important department of our psyche to those who say, Why didn't you say so before? God has a plan for you in mind.
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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.
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The role of dissident is not, and should not be, a claim of membership in a communion of saints. In other words, the more fallible the mammal, the truer the example.
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I say 'Merry Christmas' to people I don't know, or to people I know are Christians. I say 'Happy Hanukkah' to people I know to be or suspect to be Jewish. And I don't say 'Happy Kwanzaa,' because I think African Americans get enough insults all year round.
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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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Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.
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A virgin can conceive. A dead body can walk again. Your leprosy can be cured. The blind can see. Nonsense. It’s not moral to lie to children. It’s not moral to lie to ignorant, uneducated people and tell them that if they only would believe nonsense, they can be saved. It’s immoral.
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The amazing fact is that America is founded on a document. It's a work in progress. It can be tested by each generation.
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I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.
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High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.
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I think I write in a fairly self-confident manner.
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We have millions and millions of North Korean children totally stunted in mind and body and will have to be dealt with at some point, who have been raised to believe that they live in a regime that is run by a god.
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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.
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Cheap booze is a false economy.
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As well as being a vulgar producer of her own spectacle, and an embarrassment to her family, Cindy Sheehan is at best a shifty fantasist.
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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.
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