Christopher Hitchens Quotes

A collection of quotes by Christopher Hitchens.

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was a highly influential British-American author, journalist, and public intellectual. Known for his sharp wit, fearless criticism, and contrarian views, Hitchens greatly contributed to political and cultural discussions throughout his career.

Born in Portsmouth, England, Hitchens attended the prestigious Balliol College, Oxford, where he became involved in left-wing politics and developed his writing skills. In the late 1970s, he moved to the United States and began working as a correspondent for various publications, including The Nation and Vanity Fair. He established himself as an incisive and bold writer, tackling a wide range of topics such as religion, literature, history, and foreign policy.

Hitchens gained notoriety for his outspoken atheism and criticism of organized religion, particularly in his book "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." He was a fervent advocate for secularism, freedom of expression, and human rights. Hitchens also strongly opposed totalitarian regimes and was an ardent supporter of the Iraq War, a stance that was met with both admiration and criticism.

Throughout his career, Hitchens authored numerous books, including "Letters to a Young Contrarian" and "Hitch-22: A Memoir." He was a regular contributor to various media outlets and engaged in lively debates and discussions on television and in public forums.

Christopher Hitchens passed away in 2011, leaving behind a profound intellectual legacy and a reputation as one of the most influential and controversial thinkers of his time.

Of course, I do everything for money.

Of course, I do everything for money.

Christopher Hitchens

Europeans think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, a

Europeans think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious and ignorant and so on. And they've taken as their own, as their representative American, someone who actually embodies all of those qualities [Michael Moore].

Christopher Hitchens

This historic general election, which showed that the Britis

This historic general election, which showed that the British are well able to distinguish between patriotism and Toryism, brought Clement Attlee to the prime ministership. In the succeeding five years, Labor inaugurated the National Health Service, the first and boldest experiment in socialized medicine. It took into public ownership all the vital (and bankrupted) utilities of the coal, gas, electricity and railway industries. It even nibbled at the fiefdoms and baronies of private steel, air transport and trucking. It negotiated the long overdue independence of India. It did all this, in a country bled white by the World War and subject to all manner of unpopular rationing and controls, without losing a single midterm by-election (a standard not equaled by any government of any party since). And it was returned to office at the end of a crowded term.

Christopher Hitchens

Britain India Elections British People Clement Attlee Indian Independence Act 1947 Indian Independence Movement Labour Party Uk

[I]f you think that American imperialism and its globalised,

[I]f you think that American imperialism and its globalised, capitalist form is the most dangerous thing in the world, that means you don't think the Islamic Republic of Iran or North Korea or the Taliban is as bad.

Christopher Hitchens

Capitalism Iran Afghanistan North Korea Taliban American Imperialism Anti Americanism Islamic Republic Globalisation

The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a strug

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

Christopher Hitchens

Censorship Irony Free Speech Free Inquiry

A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realisation th

A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realisation that you can't make old friends.

Christopher Hitchens

Friendship Ageing

Every day, the New York Times carries a motto in a box on it

Every day, the New York Times carries a motto in a box on its front page. All the News That's Fit to Print, it says. It's been saying it for decades, day in and day out. I imagine most readers of the canonical sheet have long ceased to notice this bannered and flaunted symbol of its mental furniture. I myself check every day to make sure that the bright, smug, pompous, idiotic claim is still there.

Christopher Hitchens

When I go to the clinic next and sit with a tube in my arm a

When I go to the clinic next and sit with a tube in my arm and watch the poison go in, I'm in an attitude of abject passivity. It doesn't feel like fighting at all it just feels like submitting.

Christopher Hitchens

Faith is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of re

Faith is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other animals. It's our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. ... Out of all the virtues, all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated

Christopher Hitchens

Religion Faith Atheism Virtue Animal Mammals

What if, I never tire of asking, we said 'Secret Council' in

What if, I never tire of asking, we said 'Secret Council' instead of the archaic and therefore cuddly 'Privy Council'?

Christopher Hitchens

Government Secrecy United Kingdom Newspeak Privy Council Privy Council Of The Uk

It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject n

It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject nonsense will be excused if the utterer can claim the sanction of religion. A country which forbids an established church by law is prey to any denomination. The best that can be said is that this is pluralism of a kind.

Christopher Hitchens

Religion Atheism Christianity United States Separation Of Church And State Jerry Falwell Pluralism Jesse Jackson Religious Right

Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree

Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did.

Christopher Hitchens

Men Religion Man

I don't think it's healthy for people to want there to be a

I don't think it's healthy for people to want there to be a permanent unalterable irremovable authority over them.

Christopher Hitchens

God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was q

God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was quite the other way about, which is the painless explanation for the profusion of gods and religions, and the fratricide both between and among faiths, that we see all about us and that has so retarded the development of civilization.

Christopher Hitchens

Science Humanism Ahteism Free Inquiry

Well, I'll put it this way: you can certainly say belief in

Well, I'll put it this way: you can certainly say belief in God makes people behave worse. That can be proved beyond a doubt.

Christopher Hitchens

Kilmartin wrote a highly amusing and illuminating account of

Kilmartin wrote a highly amusing and illuminating account of his experience as a Proust revisionist, which appeared in the first issue of Ben Sonnenberg's quarterly in the autumn of 1981. The essay opened with a kind of encouragement: 'There used to be a story that discerning Frenchmen preferred to read Marcel Proust in English on the grounds that the prose of was deeply un-French and heavily influenced by English writers such as Ruskin.' I cling to this even though Kilmartin thought it to be ridiculous Parisian snobbery; I shall never be able to read Proust in French, and one's opportunities for outfacing Gallic self-regard are relatively scarce.

Christopher Hitchens

English French Paris Marcel Proust Essays Ben Sonnenberg French People Grand Street Magazine In Search Of Lost Time John Ruskin

Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and su

Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.

Christopher Hitchens

Religion Atheism Racism Superstition Scepticism Stupidity Dislikes

When people have tried everything and have discovered that n

When people have tried everything and have discovered that nothing works, they will tend to revert to what they know best which will often be the tribe, the totem, or the taboo.

Christopher Hitchens

Africa Tribalism Hopelessness Primitivism Taboo

I can remember when I was a bit of an ETA fan myself. It was

I can remember when I was a bit of an ETA fan myself. It was in 1973, when a group of Basque militants assassinated Adm. Carrero Blanco. The admiral was a stone-faced secret police chief, personally groomed to be the successor to the decrepit Francisco Franco. His car blew up, killing only him and his chauffeur with a carefully planted charge, and not only was the world well rid of another fascist, but, more important, the whole scheme of extending Franco's rule was vaporized in the same instant. The dictator had to turn instead to Crown Prince Juan Carlos, who turned out to be the best Bourbon in history and who swiftly dismantled Franco's entire system. If this action was 'terrorism,' it had something to be said for it. Everyone I knew in Spain made a little holiday in their hearts when the gruesome admiral went sky-high.

Christopher Hitchens

Dictatorship Fascism 1970s Assassination Basque People Eta Francisco Franco House Of Bourbon Juan Carlos I Of Spain

Religion ends and philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends an

Religion ends and philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins and astrology ends, and astronomy begins.

Christopher Hitchens

Religion Philosophy Theend Alchemy