Christopher Hitchens Quotes

Quotes about:

• What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Atheist

  98 Copy quote

• In the ordinary moral universe, the good will do the best they can, the worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.

  Christopher Hitchens

  People, Religion, Wicked

  Christopher Hitchens (2011). “Hitchens vs Blair”, p.10, Random House

  60 Copy quote

• Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Giving Up, Believe, Religion

  118 Copy quote

• Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Atheism, Conclusion

  67 Copy quote

• A virgin can conceive. A dead body can walk again. Your leprosy can be cured. The blind can see. Nonsense. It’s not moral to lie to children. It’s not moral to lie to ignorant, uneducated people and tell them that if they only would believe nonsense, they can be saved. It’s immoral.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Children, Lying, Believe

  151 Copy quote

• The easiest way to establish a dictatorship is to claim you are God's representative on earth.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Religion, Earth, Way

  30 Copy quote

• Whenever I hear some bigmouth in Washington or the Christian heartland banging on about the evils of sodomy or whatever, I mentally enter his name in my notebook and contentedly set my watch. Sooner rather than later, he will be discovered down on his weary and well-worn old knees in some dreary motel or latrine, with an expired Visa card, having tried to pay well over the odds to be peed upon by some Apache transvestite.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Notebook, Christian, Names

  Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.82, Atlantic Books Ltd

  204 Copy quote

• The gods that we've made are exactly the gods you'd expect to be made by a species that's about half a chromosome away from being chimpanzee.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Religion, Half, Chimpanzees

  31 Copy quote

• It's called faith because it's not knowledge.

  Christopher Hitchens

  18 Copy quote

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

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Religion, Atheism

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.253, Atlantic Books Ltd

  44 Copy quote

• Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Children, Ignorance, Racism

  Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.44, Atlantic Books Ltd

  111 Copy quote

• Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Thinking, Texas, Risk

  Christopher Hitchens' closing remarks at Hitchens-Dembski debate at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, www.youtube.com. November 18, 2010.

  20 Copy quote

• Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are God. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are God.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Inspirational, Dog, Cat

  Christopher Hitchens (2007). “The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever”, p.16, Da Capo Press

  84 Copy quote

• We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Stupid, Selfish

  53 Copy quote

• Islamophobia: a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Coward, Used, Fascists

  Misattributed. "Christopher Hitchens Never Said That Memorable Line About Islamophobia" by Hemant Mehta, www.patheos.com. May 12, 2014.

  125 Copy quote
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  If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Religious, Children, Religion

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.209, Atlantic Books Ltd

  126 Copy quote

• My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Views, Lunatic Asylums, Planets

  "God Is Not Great". Book by Christopher Hitchens, www.theguardian.com. 2011.

  72 Copy quote

• Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, religion no longer offers an explanation for anything important.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Religion, Atheism, Important

  39 Copy quote

• Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Believe, Animal

  "Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (Holier Than Thou)". TV Series, May 23, 2005.

  72 Copy quote

• I have no time to waste on this planet being told what to do by those who think that God has given them instructions.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Thinking, Waste, Planets

  Source: www.wanliss.com

  33 Copy quote

• The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that 'if English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Jesus, Texas, Taught

  58 Copy quote

• To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation - is that good for the world?

  Christopher Hitchens

  Inspirational, Motivational, Atheist

  Christopher Hitchens (2011). “Hitchens vs Blair”, p.9, Random House

  45 Copy quote

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

  Christopher Hitchens

  Lying, Independent, Thinking

  Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.3, Basic Books

  33 Copy quote

• Here is my challenge. Name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever. And here is my second challenge. Can any reader think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first - I have been asking it for some time - awaits a convincing reply. By what right, then, do the faithful assume this irritating mantle of righteousness? They have as much to apologize for as to explain.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Faith, Religious, Thinking

  "An Atheist Responds" by Christopher Hitchens, www.washingtonpost.com. July 14, 2007.

  37 Copy quote

• People are frightened of death, and the central lie of all religion is that there’s a cure for this and an exception we’ve made in your own case: an eternal life offered if you make the right propitiations and the right abjections. Well, I’m sorry. I think that it's the height of immorality to lie to people like that. That’s why [religion] survives.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Sorry, Lying, Thinking

  49 Copy quote

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