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 More Quotes by Christopher Hitchens More Quotes From Christopher Hitchens Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self-centred and even solipsistic. Christopher Hitchens cancer temptation self The secular argument, or the liberal argument, is to as much as possible remove taboos so things do not become unmentionable; to let some air into the discussion. Christopher Hitchens argument secular air Though it is true we are the highest and smartest animals, ospreys have eyes we have calculated to be sixty times more powerful and sophisticated than our own and that blindness, often caused by microscopic parasites that are themselves miracles of ingenuity, is one of the oldest and most tragic disorders known to man. And why award the superior eye (or in the case of cat or bat, also the ear) to the inferior species. Christopher Hitchens cat powerful eye I'm not that keen on the idea of being unconscious. Christopher Hitchens unconscious ideas The realization that American power could and should be used for the defense of pluralism and as a punishment for fascism came to me in Sarajevo a year or two later... That was an early quarrel between me and many of my Nation colleagues, and it was also the first time I found myself in the same trench as people like Paul Wolfowitz and Jeane Kirkpatrick: a shock I had to learn to get over. The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness. Christopher Hitchens party real thinking Where would you like to live? In a state of conflict or a conflicted state? Christopher Hitchens conflict states The stupider the regime the more intelligent the people get and the more humorous. Christopher Hitchens intelligent humorous people 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. Christopher Hitchens taken stupid thinking There is no such thing as closure, and it wouldn't be worth having if it were available, because all it would mean is that something that was quite an important part of you had gone numb. Christopher Hitchens important gone mean The taming and domestication of religion is one of the unceasing chores of civilization. Christopher Hitchens chores taming civilization A wide and vague impression exists that so-called Eastern religion is more contemplative, innocuous, and humane than the proselytizing monotheisms of the West. Don't believe a word of this: try asking the children of Indochina who were dumped by their parents for inherited deformities that were attributed to sins in a previous 'life. Christopher Hitchens atheist believe children What I used to say to people, when I was much more engagé myself, is that you can't be apolitical. It will come and get you. It's not that you shouldn't be neutral. It's that you won't be able to stay neutral. Christopher Hitchens able used people Intellectuals never sound more foolish than when posing as the last civilised man. Christopher Hitchens lasts sound men Avoid stock expressions (like the plague, as William Safire used to say) and repetitions. Don't say that as a boy your grandmother used to read to you, unless at that stage of her life she really was a boy, in which case you have probably thrown away a better intro. If something is worth hearing or listening to, it's very probably worth reading. So, this above all: Find your own voice. Christopher Hitchens grandmother reading boys There are things about quitting the smoking habit for which nobody prepares you. Did I have any idea that I would indulge in long, drooling-nay, dribbling-lascivious dreams in which I was still wreathed in fragrant blue fumes? I would wake with the complete and guilty conviction that I had sinned in word and deed while I was asleep. Christopher Hitchens dream blue ideas All this could be part of a plan. There is no way an atheist can prove it’s not. But it’s some plan, isn't it? With mass destruction, pitiless extermination, annihilation going on all the time. And all of this set in motion on a scale that’s absolutely beyond our imagination, in order that the pope can tell people not to jerk off. Christopher Hitchens mass-destruction atheist order (Howard) Dean is a raving nut bag...a raving, sinister, demagogic nutbag...I and a few other people saw that he should be destroyed. Christopher Hitchens bags nuts people I am, I hope, never offensive by accident. Christopher Hitchens accidents offensive Plainly, this unwillingness to give ground even on unimportant disagreements is the symptom of some deepseated insecurity, as was my one-time fondness for making teasing remarks (which I amended when I read Anthony Powell's matter-of-fact observation that teasing is an unfailing sign of misery within) and as is my very pronounced impatience. The struggle, therefore, is to try and cultivate the virtuous side of these shortcomings: to be a genial host while only slightly whiffled, for example, or to be witty at the expense of one's own weaknesses instead of those of other people. Christopher Hitchens struggle witty people To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning. Christopher Hitchens reasoning
