Christopher Hitchens: Trending quotes (page 3)

“My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilization, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either.”

“Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of 'the flock.”

“The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind.”

“[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.”

“Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. The grave will supply plenty of time for silence.”

“Nothing optional -- from homosexuality to adultery -- is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishment) have a repressed desire to participate.”

“The search for Nirvana, like the search for Utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle.”

“Why do humans exist? A major part of the answer: because Pikaia Gracilens survived the Burgess decimation.”

“There can be no progress without head-on confrontation.”

“Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology.”

“She's got no charisma of any kind [but] I can imagine her being mildly useful to a low-rank porn director.”

“An appreciation for irony.”

“The four most over-rated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex, and picnics.”

“The finest fury is the most controlled.”

“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.”

“Faith. Closely followed—in view of the overall shortage of time—by patience.”

“I want to urge you very strongly to travel as much as you can, and to evolve yourself as an internationalist. It's as important a part of your education as a radical as the reading of any book.”

“A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless'…”

“Nothing proves the man-made character of religion as obviously as the sick mind that designed hell.”