What do you most value in your friends? Their continued existence. Christopher Hitchens More Quotes by Christopher Hitchens More Quotes From Christopher Hitchens The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books. Christopher Hitchens holy together book Time spent arguing with the faithful is, oddly enough, almost never wasted. Christopher Hitchens faithful arguing time I say that homosexuality is not just a form of sex, it's a form of love, and it deserves our respect for that reason. Christopher Hitchens gay-pride lgbt sex No school of philosophy has ever solved this question of whether being determines consciousness or the other way around. It may be a false antithesis. Christopher Hitchens may philosophy school To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away. Christopher Hitchens daughter atheist running And yet, I wake up every day to a sensation of pervading disgust and annoyance. I probably ought to carry around some kind of thermometer or other instrument, to keep checking that I am not falling prey to premature curmudgeonhood. Christopher Hitchens wake-up kind fall I love it when Muslims go to war with each other, as I do when the Christians do, because it shows there's no such thing as the Christian world and the Islamic world. That's all crap. Christopher Hitchens islamic christian war It [defending Salmon Rushdie] was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual and the defense of free expression. Christopher Hitchens bullying hate expression I burned the candle at both ends and it often gave a lovely light. Christopher Hitchens lovely light ends The teachings of Christianity - from vicarious redemption to the love of enemies, no thought for the morrow need be taken, that no thrift or care or family or society or solidarity is necessary - these are immoral teachings that have done and continue to inflict untold moral and physical harm on our species. And until we outgrow this nonsense, we have no chance of emancipating ourselves. Christopher Hitchens taken teaching enemy 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. Christopher Hitchens prayer men thinking I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is its sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is designed with 'you' in mind or, even worse, that there is a divine plan into which one fits whether one knows it or not. This kind of modesty is too arrogant for me. Christopher Hitchens atheist mind ideas Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology. Christopher Hitchens astrology running philosophy Even if I accepted that Jesus - like almost every other prophet on record - was born of a virgin, I cannot think that this proves the divinity of his father or the truth of his teachings. The same would be true if I accepted that he had been resurrected. Christopher Hitchens teaching father jesus When I abandoned the smoking habit of more than three decades I was given a supposedly helpful pill called Wellbutrin. But as soon as I discovered that this was the brand name for an antidepressant, I tossed the bottle away. There may be successful methods for overcoming the blues but for me they cannot include a capsule that says: 'Fool yourself into happiness, while pretending not to do so.' I should actually want my mind to be strong enough to circumvent such a trick. Christopher Hitchens strong successful names The noble title of "dissident" must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement. Christopher Hitchens titles sacrifice risk In my life, the only certainty is to be uncertain. I'm an unbeliever who believes in skepticism. I'm only sure about being unsure. Christopher Hitchens skepticism uncertain believe Arguments that explain everything... explain nothing Christopher Hitchens argument He's a man [George W. Bush] who is lucky to be governor of Texas. He is a man who is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things. Christopher Hitchens texas proud men The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species. Christopher Hitchens divine humility claims
