Cluster bombs are perhaps not good in themselves, but when they are dropped on identifiable concentrations of Taliban troops, they do have a heartening effect. Christopher Hitchens More Quotes by Christopher Hitchens More Quotes From Christopher Hitchens If anything qualifies as an irony of history it would be this: that Marx and Engels throughout the nineteenth century wrote about America the United States as the great country of the future, of freedom and equality and a good life for the working man, and a country of revolution and emancipation, and of Russia as the great country of despotism, backwardness, savagery and superstition. Christopher Hitchens good-life men country All of life is a wager Christopher Hitchens wagers life-is We are unlikely to cease making gods or inventing ceremonies to please them for as long as we are afraid of death, or of the dark, and for as long as we persist in self-centeredness. That could be a lengthy stretch of time. Christopher Hitchens self dark long I appear as a skeptic, who believes that doubt is the great engine, the great fuel of all inquiry, all discovery and all innovation. Christopher Hitchens innovation discovery believe I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn't ever have to rely on the press for my information. Christopher Hitchens journalist rely information It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends. Christopher Hitchens holiday christmas atheist Ronald Reagan used to alarm other constituencies by speaking freely about the End Times foreshadowed in the Bible. Christopher Hitchens alarms used talking The fact is: It's true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it. Christopher Hitchens bored land opportunity In our time, the symbol of state intrusion into the private life is the mandatory urine test. Christopher Hitchens intrusion tests life-is Knowing that we are primates, I think, is a fascinating discovery, and a very interesting and rather cheering one. Christopher Hitchens cheer discovery thinking I felt Clinton represented the worst of the 1960s. Christopher Hitchens 1960s clinton worst Name a moral statement or action, uttered or performed by a religious person that could not have been uttered or performed by an unbeliever. Christopher Hitchens religious names action I joined a small but growing post-Trotskyite Luxembourgist sect. Christopher Hitchens sects posts growing Religion makes intelligent people say and do wacky things, believe and affirm crazy things. Christopher Hitchens crazy intelligent believe The term 'the American Left' is as near to being meaningless or nonsensical as any term could really be in politics. It isn't really a force in politics anymore. And it would do well to ask itself why that is. Christopher Hitchens nonsensical force term Millions of people die every day. Everyone's got to go sometime. Christopher Hitchens occasional dies people One can't indefinitely do for somebody what he is reluctant to do for himself. Christopher Hitchens reluctant So here we have found a means of a) alienating even the most flexible and patient Palestinians; while b) frustrating the efforts of the more principled and compromising Israelis; while c) empowering and financing some of the creepiest forces in American and Israeli society; and d) heaping ordure on our own secular founding documents. When will the Justice Department and the Congress and the Supreme Court become aware of this huge and rank offense, which is designed to bring us ever nearer to holy war? Christopher Hitchens justice war mean When I went to Czechoslovakia under the old Communist regime one day in the '80s, I thought to myself whatever I do, whatever happens to me in Prague I'm not going to use the name Kafka, I'm just not going to do it. I won't do it; it's so easy, everyone else does, I'm not going to. I'll write the first non-Kafka mentioning piece. Christopher Hitchens one-day names writing Rosa Luxemburg was - still is for me - a great personal and intellectual heroine. Her analysis of Leninism and capitalism and social democracy are all worth reading. I wouldn't consider anyone truly politically literate if they hadn't given her work at least some study. Christopher Hitchens democracy intellectual reading