There either is a god or there is not; there is a 'design' or not. Christopher Hitchens More Quotes by Christopher Hitchens More Quotes From Christopher Hitchens Hannah Arendt in her study of totalitarianism borrowed from Immanuel Kant the concept of radical evil, of evil that's so evil that in the end it destroys itself, it's so committed to evil and it's so committed to hatred and cruelty that it becomes suicidal. My definition of it is the surplus value that's generated by totalitarianism. It means you do more violence, more cruelty than you absolutely have to to stay in power. Christopher Hitchens suicidalevilmean Allow a friend to believe in a bogus prospectus or a false promise and you cease, after a short while, to be a friend at all. Christopher Hitchens ceasebelievepromise I wrote a piece from North Korea called Visit to a Small Planet which is a line I stole from a play of Gore Vidal's, because it did seem to me as if I had left this planet completely to go on this visit to the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, and it was as if coming back from another spatial body altogether. Christopher Hitchens koreapiecesplay I'm a single-issue voter, to get straight to the point. I'm really only interested in the candidate who's toughest and least apologetic when it comes to the confrontation with Islamic Jihadism. Christopher Hitchens islamicvotersissues We become accomplices in evil every time we seek to soothe the unslakable appetites of the crime family that sits in Pyongyang. Christopher Hitchens crimepoliticsevil Ruthless and arrogant though power can appear, it is only ever held by mere mammals who excrete and yearn, and who suffer from insomnia and insecurity. These mammals are also necessarily vain in the extreme, and often wish to be liked almost as much as they desire to be feared. Christopher Hitchens insecuritypowerinsomnia I didn't think Marilyn Monroe was beautiful. It used to worry me. I thought maybe I'm not put together like the other chaps. Christopher Hitchens worrybeautifulthinking Bertrand Russell used to employ the method of "evidence against interest"; in other words of deciding that a critique of capital punishment, say, carried more weight if it came from a prison governor. (My friend John O'Sullivan puts it like this: If the pope says he believes in God, he's only doing his job; if he says he doesn't believe in God, he may be on to something.) Christopher Hitchens punishmentjobsbelieve I can never quite decide whether the anti-Columbus movement is merely risible or faintly sinister. It is sinister, though, because it is an ignorant celebration of stasis and backwardness, with an unpleasant tinge of self-hatred. Christopher Hitchens ignoranthatredself Terrorism works better as a tactic for dictatorships, or for would-be dictators, than for revolutionaries . Christopher Hitchens tacticsrevolutionarywould-be The mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made. Christopher Hitchens criticismmademen There are people who cannot forget, as neither do I, the lesson of the years of the Indochina War. Which was, first, that the state is capable of being a murderer. A mass murderer, and a conspirator and a liar. Christopher Hitchens liarswaryears And the pleasures and rewards of the intellect are inseparable from angst, uncertainty, conflict and even despair. Christopher Hitchens rewardsdespairconflict "Objective" means that, in a confrontation with the evidence, you would be willing to change your own mind. Christopher Hitchens painmindmean The obsession with gold, actually and politically, occurs among those who regard economics as a branch of morality. Gold is solid, gold is durable, gold is rare, gold is even (in certain very peculiar circumstances) convertible. To believe in thrift, solidity and soundness is to believe in some way in the properties of gold. Christopher Hitchens moneygoldbelieve A good liar must have a good memory. Christopher Hitchens good-memoriesliarsmemories There is an unusually high and consistent correlation between the stupidity of a given person and that person’s propensity to be impressed by the measurement of IQ. Christopher Hitchens measurementgivenstupidity A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realisation that you can't make old friends. Christopher Hitchens lessonsold-friendsyears In ridiculing a pathetic human fallacy, which seeks explanation where none need be sought and which multiplies unnecessary assumptions, one should not mimic primitive ontology in order to challenge it. Better to dispose of the needless assumption altogether. This holds true for everything from Noah's flood to the Holocaust. Christopher Hitchens holocaustatheistorder Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that - or enhances and prolongs and deepens Christopher Hitchens partywritingnight
