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There can be no progress without head-on confrontation.

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
Confrontation
Argument
Progress
Head
Without

More quotes by Christopher Hitchens

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Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, religion no longer offers an explanation for anything important.
Christopher Hitchens
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I would say that if you don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you're really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.
Christopher Hitchens
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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
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Intellectuals never sound more foolish than when posing as the last civilised man.
Christopher Hitchens
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It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't ever be responsible for it.
Christopher Hitchens
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Exceptional claims, require exceptional evidence.
Christopher Hitchens
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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
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You can't have occupation and human rights.
Christopher Hitchens
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Part of the function of memory is to forget the omni-retentive mind will break down and produce at best an idiot savant who can recite a telephone book, and at worst a person to whom every grudge and slight is as yesterday's.
Christopher Hitchens
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Take the risk of thinking for yourself
Christopher Hitchens
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It [Obama's Nobel peace prize] would be like giving someone an Oscar in the hope that it would encourage them to make a decent motion picture.
Christopher Hitchens
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I don't think the soul is immortal, or at least not immortal in individuals, but it may be immortal as an aspect of the human personality because when I talk about what literature nourishes, it would be silly of me or reductionist to say that it nourishes the brain.
Christopher Hitchens
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I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: 'If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.' Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.
Christopher Hitchens
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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.
Christopher Hitchens
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When I am at home, I never go near the synagogue unless, say, there is a bar or bat mitzvah involving the children of friends. But when I am traveling, in a country where Jewish life is scarce or endangered, I often make a visit to the shul.
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
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Chemotherapy isn't good for you. So when you feel bad, as I am feeling now, you think, 'Well that is a good thing because it's supposed to be poison. If it's making the tumor feel this queasy, then I'm OK with it.'
Christopher Hitchens
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It is exactly the fear of revenge that motivates the deepest crimes, from the killing of the enemy's children lest they grow up to play their own part, to the erasure of the enemy's graveyards and holy places so that his hated name can be forgotten.
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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I'm not particularly a feminist, but if you get women off the animal cycle of reproduction and give them some say in how many children they'll have, immediately the floor will rise.
Christopher Hitchens