99 Inspirational Quotes By Christopher Hitchens That Everyone Can Agree On
Christopher Hitchens was a revered columnist and author who penned the books 'God Is Not Great', "Hitch 22" and 'Mortality'. Recounting their first ever meeting his long-time friend Neal Pollack says, "University, as you know, is the only time in one’s life when anything really worthwhile happens. I met Hitch there. The first time I saw him, he had a bird on each arm and a woman by his side. She beamed as he read aloud passages from “Homage to Catalonia.” He looked up.
“Who the hell are you?” he said.
“I’m your housemate,” I said.
“Are you in favor of the war in Vietnam?”
“Of course not.”
Hitch put down the book and took a swig of cheap Scotch.
“Good,” he said. “Because I refuse to fraternize with men who are afraid to be intellectual heroes.”
Recounting another incident where Hitchens behaved in his trademark style when enraged, Pollack says, "He took ideas so seriously that if he disagreed with you on a matter that he deemed important, he’d literally throw you in a ditch. It was 1972, the height of our mutual virility. He and I went to a pub to celebrate his most recent intellectual victory over the establishment press. I intimated that sometimes women could be funny on purpose. Even back then, the thought enraged him. Hitchens threw a drink in my face, pressed a lit cigarette into my neck, and hit me over the head with a barstool. The next thing I knew, it was two days later and I was lying hogtied and naked beside the M5. Hitch had already severely damaged my reputation in a vicious essay in the Guardian. But that’s how he operated, and that’s why we loved him."
Here is a collection of inspirational quotes by Christopher Hitchens.
That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?
Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay.
Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.
The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.
What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.
What do you most value in your friends? Their continued existence.
![[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/christopher-hitchens-11911.jpg)
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him will believeth in anything. - Hitchens 3:16
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’.
How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
To the dumb question "Why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: why not?
To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.
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.
Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and—since there is no other metaphor—also the soul.
I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves.
The noble title of "dissident" must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement.
![I have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement [Libertarians] in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/christopher-hitchens-11922.jpg)
I have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement [Libertarians] in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.
I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.
![If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/christopher-hitchens-11925.jpg)
If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.
The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind.
Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of 'the flock.
Time spent arguing is, oddly enough, almost never wasted.
![[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/christopher-hitchens-11928.jpg)
[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.
Why do humans exist? A major part of the answer: because Pikaia Gracilens survived the Burgess decimation.
Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. The grave will supply plenty of time for silence.
 have a repressed desire to participate. ){kind=small}
Nothing optional -- from homosexuality to adultery -- is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishment) have a repressed desire to participate.
There can be no progress without head-on confrontation.
![She's got no charisma of any kind [but] I can imagine her being mildly useful to a low-rank porn director.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/christopher-hitchens-11933.jpg)
She's got no charisma of any kind [but] I can imagine her being mildly useful to a low-rank porn director.
