Christopher Hitchens Short Quotes

25 Sourced Quotes

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Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.

Christopher Hitchens
The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.

Christopher Hitchens
That most risky and volatile of all things a self-pitying majority.

Christopher Hitchens
Human society is inconceivable unless words are to some extent bonds.

Christopher Hitchens
I have often thought that when I do die it will be of sheer boredom...

Christopher Hitchens
Religion has been an enormous multiplier of tribal suspicion and hatred.

Christopher Hitchens
Where would you like to live? In a state of conflict or a conflicted state?

Christopher Hitchens
High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

Christopher Hitchens
The moment of near despair is quite often the moment that precedes courage.

Christopher Hitchens
To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning.

Christopher Hitchens
What is your idea of earthly happiness? To be vindicated in my own lifetime.

Christopher Hitchens
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

Christopher Hitchens
It's probably a merciful thing that pain is impossible to describe from memory

Christopher Hitchens
Virtue and merit can become their opposites if they are exacted or compelled...

Christopher Hitchens
Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of 'the flock.

Christopher Hitchens
Judaism is not just one more religion, but in its way the root of religious evil

Christopher Hitchens
The concept of loneliness and exile and self-sufficiency continually bucks me up.

Christopher Hitchens
Intellectuals never sound more foolish than when posing as the last civilised man.

Christopher Hitchens
Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible, and demanding it at gunpoint.

Christopher Hitchens
The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

Christopher Hitchens
My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends.

Christopher Hitchens
If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does.

Christopher Hitchens
If waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

Christopher Hitchens
Three words for those who want to put the Christ back in Christmas: Jingle Bell Rock.

Christopher Hitchens
To remember friendship is to recall those conversations that it seemed a sin to break off

Christopher Hitchens
We live only a few conscious decades, and we fret ourselves enough for several lifetimes.

Christopher Hitchens
To the dumb question, 'Why me?' the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply, 'Why not?'

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

Christopher Hitchens
Forget it. Never explain; never apologize. You can either write posthumously or you can't.

Christopher Hitchens
It's often a bad sign when people defend themselves against charges which haven't been made.

Christopher Hitchens