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Peter Hitchens Quotes

Peter Jonathan Hitchens is an English journalist and author. He has published six books, including The Abolition of Britain, The Rage Against God, and The War We Never Fought. He is a frequent critic of political correctness, and describes himself as an Anglican Christian and Burkean conservative, as well as a social democrat.

Hitchens writes for The Mail on Sunday and is a former foreign correspondent in Moscow and Washington. He works as a foreign reporter and in 2010 was awarded the Orwell Prize.



✵ 28. October 1951
Peter Hitchens photo

Works

The Rage Against God
The Rage Against God
Peter Hitchens
Peter Hitchens: 22   quotes 2   likes

Famous Peter Hitchens Quotes

“The struggle for [gender] equality in education and professions was won decades ago. What is really fascinating is this extraordinary alliance between radical leftist feminism and corporate multinational business which is probably the most sinister and cynical alliance since the Nazi-Soviet pact.”

Peter Hitchens

2013-11-04
The best of Peter Hitchens
Q&A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVztwcnvIS4&feature=youtu.be&t=13m19s
On gender equality

“If the Conservative Party were your refrigerator, all your food would go bad. If it were your car or bicycle, you would be stranded by the side of the road. If it were your accountant, you would be bankrupt. If it were your lawyer, you would be in prison. If any consumer good, service or profession so consistently and predictably disappointed or failed in its ostensible main purpose, people would turn their backs on it. It would be overtaken, replaced and driven out of business by a better competitor.”

Peter Hitchens

From 'The Cameron Delusion' (2010)

“Is there any point in public debate in a society where hardly anyone has been taught how to think, while millions have been taught what to think?”

Peter Hitchens

“The main enemy of conservatism in Britain is the Conservative Party.”

Peter Hitchens

From 'The Cameron Delusion' (2010)

“Because it calls itself the Conservative party; if it called itself the Socialist Workers' Party, I wouldn't have anything against it. It's egalitarian, it's opposed to the maintenance to the married family, which is the absolute pillar of morale and social conservatism. It's opposed to national independence, completely wedded to our membership of the supranational European Union which robs us of sovereignty. It's got much more in common with the SWP than it has with Conservatism.”

Peter Hitchens

2015-09-14
Owen Jones meets Peter Hitchens
Owen Jones meets...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrwuk6NoMv8
On his hostility to the Conservative Party

“In an incredibly short time, we have been turned into a nation without heroes, without pride in our past or knowledge of either our past triumphs or our past follies and disasters. We are like an amnesia patient, waking up in the hospital ward, with both past and future great blank spaces stretching behind and before us, doomed to repeat mistakes we do not even know we have already made.”

Peter Hitchens

Source: From 'The Abolition of Britain' (1999), p. 62-63

Peter Hitchens Quotes about people

“To anyone brought up when English literature, scripture, liturgy, poetry and hymns were still taught and learned, it is astonishing to find out how little they have in common with those who were raised and educated in the post-revolutionary culture. The pre-revolutionary survivor can finish other people's sentences, detect the rhythm in other people's speeches, recognise a score of allusions in a page of print. There is hardly a word or phrase which does not awake a richer thought, or an echo of something hauntingly similar.”

Peter Hitchens

Source: From 'The Abolition of Britain' (1999), p.196

“We're not close. We're different people, we have different lives, we have entirely different pleasures, we live in different continents. If we weren't brothers we wouldn't know each other.”

Peter Hitchens

2009-05-14
Question Time
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/14/peter-hitchens-interview

“People are terrified of changing their minds. Changing your mind is a door you don’t want to open because you don’t know what’s behind it. Changing your mind means losing all your friends. Changing your mind means a complete revolution in your life. Changing your mind means publicly admitting you’ve been wrong. […] People don’t want to change their minds.”

Peter Hitchens book The Rage Against God

2016
Peter Hitchens: The Rage Against God
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEJ_dtN0QO8
On Changing One's Mind

“In 1965, the people of Britain may have been poorer, smaller, shabbier, dirtier, colder, narrower, more set in their ways, ignorant of olive oil, polenta and - even - lager. But they knew what united them, they shared a complicated web of beliefs, attitudes, prejudices, loyalties and dislikes.”

Peter Hitchens

Source: From 'The Abolition of Britain' (1999), p.23

Peter Hitchens Quotes

“If they win on Thursday (EU referendum, 2016), the process of abolishing Britain will be complete. If they lose, as I hope they do and still think they will, there is a faint, slender chance that we may get our country back one day.”

Peter Hitchens

2016-06-19

PETER HITCHENS: There's a faint chance we may get our nation back one day

Mail on Sunday

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2016/06/peter-hitchens-theres-a-faint-chance-we-may-get-our-nation-back-one-day.html
On the pro-EU political class

Hope , Thinking , Chance , Country

“Many of the things which New Labour were doing had in fact been presaged by John Major [Conservative PM 1990-97], who really was the first New Labour Prime Minister.”

Peter Hitchens

2013-03-23
This house believes that New Labour ruined Britain
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUHNFY1ksPw
On John Major

“Every Prime Minister since Edward Heath has come back from negotiations with Brussels without his trousers, and without his wallet, and said, "I've just won an fantastic victory". They keep on doing it. They've always lost, the European Union will always take us for a ride - that is what it's for, and until we leave it, it will continue to do so.”

Peter Hitchens

On European Union negotiations

Victory

“We cannot just give [our country] to complete strangers on an impulse because it makes us feel good about ourselves.”

Peter Hitchens

2015-09-06
PETER HITCHENS: We won't save refugees by destroying our own country
Mail on Sunday
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3223828/PETER-HITCHENS-won-t-save-refugees-destroying-country.html

Feeling , Country

“A liberal will defend to the death your right to agree with her. Disagree with her, and she will call the police.”

Peter Hitchens

From 'The Cameron Delusion' (2010)

Death

“Don't you dare call me optimistic. (It's a) grave insult.”

Peter Hitchens

2015-12-21
@ClarkeMicah
Twitter
http://twitter.com/ClarkeMicah/status/678918461255495680
On being called optimistic

“If you forge your weapons for use in the political battle, don't be surprised if it gets turned against you.”

Peter Hitchens

2013-07-03
Christopher Hitchens on the Clinton-Lewinsky Political Sex Scandal (1998)
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9mxMfbXAQ8?t=44m6s
On the fairness of comparing Clarence Thomas to Bill Clinton

“A nation is the sum of its memories, and when those memories are allowed to die, it is less of a nation.”

Peter Hitchens

Source: From 'The Abolition of Britain' (1999), p.35

Memory

“To complain that a European Union official is a federalist, is like complaining that a bicycle has handlebars. That's what they are, that's what they do.”

Peter Hitchens

1998-01-98
Peter Hitchens on David Cameron and the EU
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjmNWwA6V5I
On David Cameron's opposition to Jean-Claude Juncker's appointment

“Let me repeat that the absurd thing about the anti-Islam neo-conservatives is that they are invariably supporters of unrestricted migration, the means by which Islam has quite peacefully established itself as a permanent, growing major social, religious and political force in our country. If Sharia law comes to Britain, as Mr Jacubs fears, it will not be because of violent actions such as the Woolwich outrage, which I think we can safely assume were condemned and disowned by most British Muslims. It will be as the result of the entirely peaceful establishment of a sizeable Muslim population in this country.”

Peter Hitchens

2013-12-28
Another attempt at reasoning with Mr Jacubs and the neo-cons
Mail on Sunday
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/12/another-attempt-at-reasoning-with-mr-jacubs-and-the-neo-cons.html
On neo-conservatism

Fear , Peace , Law , Support

“Frankly, I could carve a better opposition party out of a banana than the Tories.”

Peter Hitchens

2009-05-14
Question Time
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/14/peter-hitchens-interview

“It is a fantasy to believe that you punish politicians by throwing them out of office. It is when they leave office that they start making the real money.”

Peter Hitchens

2022-06-01
GB News Dewbs & Co

Money

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