Quote

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

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
Even
Created
Proclaim
Failing
Humane
Polytheism
Quiet
Irrational
Complicit
Line
Appeal
Monotheism
Lines
Compassionate
Authoritarianism
Back
Appeals
Commanded
Wells
Fail
Unforgettable
Well
Sick
Totalitarian

More quotes by Christopher Hitchens

Image
One of the many problems with the American left has been its image as something rather too solemn, mirthless, herbivorous, dull, monochrome, righteous, and boring.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
She's got no charisma of any kind [but] I can imagine her being mildly useful to a low-rank porn director.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
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
Image
I vote and I do jury duty.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Virtue and merit can become their opposites if they are exacted or compelled.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
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
Image
The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Ordinary morality is innate in my view.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
We know that our life is essentially tragic. I'm absolutely not for handing over that very important department of our psyche to those who say, Why didn't you say so before? God has a plan for you in mind.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
It is a pity that...the majority of feminists and their allies have stuck to the dead ground of Me Decade possessive individualism, an ideology that has more in common than it admits with the prehistoric right, which it claims to oppose but has in fact encouraged.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Religion has run out of justifications. Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important. Where once it used to able, by its total command of a worldview, to prevent the emergence of rivals, it can now only impede and retard-or try to turn back-the measureable advances that we have made.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Your least favorite virtue, or nominee for the most overrated one? Faith. Closely followed—in view of the overall shortage of time—by patience.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
There is no reason at all why there aren't enough people to guard New Orleans and to help stabilise Baghdad.
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
Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, religion no longer offers an explanation for anything important.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. They don't do any good, but they don't necessarily do any harm. It's touching to be thought of in that way. It makes up for those who tell me that I've got my just desserts.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
To what faults do you feel most indulgent? To the ones that arise from urgent material needs.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
The pornography of tough-mindedness, covert action, and preparedness for peace through strength has had a predictably hypnotic effect on the legislative branch, turning it from legal watchdog to lapdog.
Christopher Hitchens
Image
I don't think it's possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.
Christopher Hitchens