Christopher Hitchens citations

Page 2

“La religion empoisonne tout. La religion se mêle de sexe, contrôle ce que nous mangeons et exacerbe notre propension à la culpabilité en multipliant les interdits les plus arbitraires. La religion diabolise la science, se fait complice de l'ignorance et de l'obscurantisme. Source de haine, de tyrannie et de guerres, la religion met notre monde en danger.”

“[L]a religion est une fabrication humaine. Même ceux qui l'ont élaborée ne peuvent se mettre d'accord sur ce que leurs prophètes, sauveurs ou gourous ont effectivement dit ou fait.”

“La loi pakistanaise permet de "condamner" une femme à subir un viol collectif afin d'expier la "honte" d'une crime commis par son frère.”

“The man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right.”

“The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran who risk their lives and their beauty to defy the foulness of theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi as their ideal feminine model.”

“I have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement [Libertarians] in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.”

“Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and—since there is no other metaphor—also the soul.”

“I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.”

“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.”

“Courage moral and physical: 'anima'—the ability to think like a woman. Also a sense of the absurd. Courage moral and physical: “anima”—the ability to visualize the mind and need of a man. Also a sense of the absurd.”

“The noble title of "dissident" must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement.”

“Time spent arguing with the faithful is, oddly enough, almost never wasted.”

“If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.”

“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.”