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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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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
Principles
Existence
Rather
Ennoble
Religion
Credulity
Use
Skepticism
Human
Intellect
Humans
Principle
Highest
More quotes by Christopher Hitchens
The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.
Christopher Hitchens
For a lot of people, their first love is what they'll always remember. For me it's always been the first hate, and I think that hatred, though it provides often rather junky energy, is a terrific way of getting you out of bed in the morning and keeping you going.
Christopher Hitchens
One of the most repellent spectacles at election times is the pretense of piety on the part of people running for office.
Christopher Hitchens
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
Exceptional claims, require exceptional evidence.
Christopher Hitchens
The fragility of love is what is most at stake here—humanity's most crucial three-word avowal is often uttered only to find itself suddenly embarrassing or orphaned or isolated or ill-timed—but strangely enough it can work better as a literal or reassuring statement than a transcendent or numinous or ecstatic one.
Christopher Hitchens
I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves.
Christopher Hitchens
The violence in the Bible is appalling.
Christopher Hitchens
My own opinion is enough for me. And I claim the right to defend it against any consensus, any majority anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line and kiss my ass.
Christopher Hitchens
A rule of thumb with humor if you worry that you might be going too far, you have already not gone far enough. If everybody laughs, you have failed.
Christopher Hitchens
To what faults do you feel most indulgent? To the ones that arise from urgent material needs.
Christopher Hitchens
With modern American dentistry it is simply amazing to see what transformation can be wrought in a single day.
Christopher Hitchens
The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.
Christopher Hitchens
To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning.
Christopher Hitchens
I could not do what I do, and teach a class, and never miss a deadline, never be late for anything if I was a lush, OK? I would really love to read a piece that said, 'He is not a lush.' That would be fabulous, it would be a first, I could show it to people and say, 'Look!'
Christopher Hitchens
No school of philosophy has ever solved this question of whether being determines consciousness or the other way around. It may be a false antithesis.
Christopher Hitchens
The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind.
Christopher Hitchens
A point, like a joke, is a terrible thing to miss.
Christopher Hitchens
Time spent arguing with the faithful is, oddly enough, almost never wasted.
Christopher Hitchens
Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that - or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation - is worth it to me. [It is] impossible for me to imagine having my life without going to those parties, without having those late nights, without that second bottle.
Christopher Hitchens
