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What a country, and what a culture, when the liberals cry before they are hurt, and the reactionaries pose as brave nonconformists, while the radicals make a fetish of their own jokey irrelevance.

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
Culture
Fetish
Country
Reactionaries
Make
Pose
Liberals
Radical
Brave
Nonconformists
Cry
Irrelevance
Hurt
Radicals

More quotes by Christopher Hitchens

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The secular argument, or the liberal argument, is to as much as possible remove taboos so things do not become unmentionable to let some air into the discussion.
Christopher Hitchens
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Here’s someone who says there’s no such thing, it’s all intelligent design. How sure am I of my own views? Don’t take refuge in the false security of consensus, and the feeling that whatever you think you’re bound to be okay, because you’re in the safely moral majority.
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The quality you most admire in a woman? Courage moral and physical: anima-the ability to visualize the mind and need of a man. Also a sense of the absurd.
Christopher Hitchens
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I don't think there's any need to have essays advocating selfishness among human beings I don't know what your impression has been, but some things require no further reinforcement.
Christopher Hitchens
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I'm here as a product of process of evolution, which doesn't make very many exceptions. And which rates life relatively cheaply.
Christopher Hitchens
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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.
Christopher Hitchens
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To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist.
Christopher Hitchens
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There is no reason at all why there aren't enough people to guard New Orleans and to help stabilise Baghdad.
Christopher Hitchens
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High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.
Christopher Hitchens
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The polls undoubtedly help to decide what people think, but their most important long-term influence may be on how people think. The interrogative process is very distinctly weighted against the asking of an intelligent question or the recording of a thoughtful answer.
Christopher Hitchens
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The press is still investing itself, it seems to me, in a sort of cynicism. It comes out better for them if they can predict hard times, bogging down, sniping, attrition.
Christopher Hitchens
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Knowing that we are primates, I think, is a fascinating discovery, and a very interesting and rather cheering one.
Christopher Hitchens
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Rosa Luxemburg was - still is for me - a great personal and intellectual heroine. Her analysis of Leninism and capitalism and social democracy are all worth reading. I wouldn't consider anyone truly politically literate if they hadn't given her work at least some study.
Christopher Hitchens
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For me, the life of the angler is an almost flawless example of how not to have a good time.
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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Religion is not the belief there is a god. Religion is the belief god tells you what to do.
Christopher Hitchens
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There can be no progress without head-on confrontation.
Christopher Hitchens
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At Oxford one was positively encouraged to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied.
Christopher Hitchens
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The fact is: It's true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it.
Christopher Hitchens
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It's not at all good when your cancer is 'palpable' from the outside. Especially when, as at this stage, they didn't even know where the primary source was. Carcinoma works cunningly from the inside out. Detection and treatment often work more slowly and gropingly, from the outside in.
Christopher Hitchens