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The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

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
Mind
Skepticism
Thinking
Thinks
Independent
Essence
Lies
Opinion
Lying
Purpose

More quotes by Christopher Hitchens

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If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings I'm still waiting to hear what your point is.
Christopher Hitchens
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Even the most humane and compassionate of the monotheisms and polytheisms are complicit in this quiet and irrational authoritarianism: they proclaim us, in Fulke Greville's unforgettable line, Created sick Commanded to be well. And there are totalitarian insinuations to back this up if its appeal should fail.
Christopher Hitchens
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I have a strong constitution which has served me quite well, though if I hadn't had such a strong one I might have led a more healthy life perhaps.
Christopher Hitchens
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In the brute physical world, and the one encompassed by medicine, there are all too many things that could kill you, don't kill you, and then leave you considerably weaker.
Christopher Hitchens
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This huge and terrible industry [the slave trade] was blessed by all churches and for a long time aroused absolutely no religious protest. . . . In the eighteenth century, a few dissenting Mennonites and Quakers in America began to call for abolition, as did some freethinkers like Thomas Paine.
Christopher Hitchens
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Skepticism rather than credulity is the highest principle that the human intellect can use to ennoble our existence.
Christopher Hitchens
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You should be nicer to him,' a schoolmate had once said to me of some awfully ill-favored boy. 'He has no friends.' This, I realized with a pang of pity that I can still remember, was only true as long as everybody agreed to it.
Christopher Hitchens
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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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If I was to interrupt this article every few sentences, asking you whether or not I was making a good impression on you, I hope and believe that you would think I was a servile jerk. Yet this is what our politicians are doing in every speech.
Christopher Hitchens
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The beauty of science hugely outranks the charms of superstition.
Christopher Hitchens
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Indeed, it's futile to try and use Holy Scripture to support any political position. I deeply distrust anyone who does. Just look at what an Islamic Republic is like.
Christopher Hitchens
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In a Pyongyang restaurant, don't ever ask for a doggie bag.
Christopher Hitchens
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If people I've never met or don't know say that what I've written or done or said means anything to them, then I'm happy to take it at face value, for once. It cheers me up.
Christopher Hitchens
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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.
Christopher Hitchens
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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.
Christopher Hitchens
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Talking, it seemed to me, was the point of adult existence.
Christopher Hitchens
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I have quite a decent constitution in spite of all my abuse of it and my advanced years. I'm still quite robust.
Christopher Hitchens
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Ever since I discovered that my god given male member was going to give me no peace, I decided to give it no rest in return.
Christopher Hitchens
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It's called faith because it's not knowledge.
Christopher Hitchens
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To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.
Christopher Hitchens