Quote

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

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
Independent
Essence
Lies
Opinion
Lying
Purpose
Mind
Skepticism
Thinking
Thinks

More quotes by Christopher Hitchens

Image
Martin is your best friend, isn't he?' a sweet and well-intentioned girl once said when both of us were present: it was the only time I ever felt awkward about this precious idea, which seemed somehow to risk diminishment if it were uttered aloud.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Solidarity is an attitude of resistance, I suppose, or it should be.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
People know when they are being lied to, they know when their rulers are absurd, they know they do not love their chains.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
To what faults do you feel most indulgent? To the ones that arise from urgent material needs.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
A good day is one where I can not just read a book, but write a review of it. Maybe today I'll be able to do that. I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I'm crepuscular.
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
We know how to think. We know how to laugh. We know we're going to die, which gives us a lot to think about, and we have a need for, what I would call, the transcendent or the numinous or even the ecstatic that comes out in love and music, poetry, and landscape. I wouldn't trust anyone who didn't respond to things of that sort.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
The term 'the American Left' is as near to being meaningless or nonsensical as any term could really be in politics. It isn't really a force in politics anymore. And it would do well to ask itself why that is.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
There is a limit to the success of conservative populism and the exploitation of little guy or silent majority rhetoric, and it is very often reached because of the emaciated, corrupted personalities of the demagogues themselves.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
I must have been one of the least surprised people on earth on September 11. I felt very braced for that. I knew something like that was going to come.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Endless praise and adoration, limitless abnegation and abjection of self a celestial North Korea.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
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.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Allow a friend to believe in a bogus prospectus or a false promise and you cease, after a short while, to be a friend at all.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
A good liar must have a good memory. Kissinger is a stupendous liar with a remarkable memory.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Talking, it seemed to me, was the point of adult existence.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
I, for one, will not have [the Vietcong] insulted by any comparison to the forces of Zarqawi, the Fedayeen Saddam, and the criminal underworld now arrayed against us. These depraved elements are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge.
Christopher Hitchens