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Christopher Hitchens
263 quotes
“Chomsky proceeds on the almost unthinkably subversive assumption that the United States should be judged by the same standards that it preaches (often at gunpoint) to other nations— he is nearly the only person now writing who assumes a single standard of international morality not for rhetorical effect, but as a matter of habitual, practically instinctual conviction.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Christopher Hitchens, For the Sake of Argument ("The 'We' Fallacy"), February 1988: On Noam Chomsky
“...in fact, the war against Iraq is continuing. And it's continuing now by the means which the administration described as contemptible and useless, when they were put forth as an alternative to an actual all-out aerial bombardment. Namely, economic sanctions, which do have the effect of slowly starving and crippling the population of Iraq, while leaving the military caste of Saddam Hussein and his criminal Baath Party in charge. I was asked the other day … why do you think the administration decided to spare Saddam Hussein … and I said I think because they thought they might need him again...”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For a lot of people, their first love is what they'll always remember. For me it's always been the first hate, and I think that hatred, though it provides often rather junky energy, is a terrific way of getting you out of bed in the morning and keeping you going. If you don't let it get out of hand, it can be canalized into writing. In this country where people love to be nonjudgmental when they can be, which translates as, on the whole, lenient, there are an awful lot of bubble reputations floating around that one wouldn't be doing one's job if one didn't itch to prick.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: For the Sake of Argument" at www.booknotes.org, October 17, 1993.
“If most of those who took part in this one-dimensional debate were honest with themselves, they would admit that they do not in principle believe that the United States can do any good overseas for anyone but the American government, its armed forces, or privileged American elites.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The next stop on Reagan's European tour after Bitburg was Madrid, where he made a speech in which he said, "I know there's been a lot of controversy about the United States and Spain at that time, indeed some Americans once came here to fight in the civil war." He said, "But the thing is," said Reagan, "they were on the wrong side." In other words a conscious choice, a conscious and deliberate remark showing that the sympathy for fascism, not accidental, not anecdotal, not a slip of the tongue, but something bred-in-the-bone; and, I think, also worth recalling.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“David Irving is not just a Fascist historian. He is also a great historian of Fascism.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hitler's Ghost", Vanity Fair (June 1996)
“The "line of the day" among administration spokesmen, confronted by masses of destitute and terrified refugees and solid reports of the mass execution of civilians, is to say that "we expected this to happen." They did? (They never told anyone.) If they want to avoid being indicted for war crimes themselves, these "spokesmen" had better promise us that they were lying when they said that.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I can never quite decide whether the anti-Columbus movement is merely risible or faintly sinister... It is sinister, though, because it is an ignorant celebration of stasis and backwardness, with an unpleasant tinge of self-hatred.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...those who view the history of North America as a narrative of genocide and slavery are, it seems to me, hopelessly stuck on this reactionary position. They can think of the Western expansion of the United States only in terms of plague blankets, bootleg booze and dead buffalo, never in terms of the medicine chest, the wheel and the railway.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The transformation of part of the northern part of this continent into "America" inaugurated a nearly boundless epoch of opportunity and innovation, and thus deserves to be celebrated with great vim and gusto, with or without the participation of those who wish they had never been born.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Religious ideas, supposedly private matters between man and god, are in practice always political ideas”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who say that without the monarchy Britain would be a banana republic are closing their eyes to the banana republic features which the cult of monarchy necessitates. Dazzled by the show, moreover, they may be missing other long-run tendencies towards banana-dom which it is the partial function of monarchy to obscure.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The United States, for example, has never had a President as bad as George III, but neither has Britain had a king as admirable as George Washington (of whom William Thackeray rightly said that 'his glory will descend to remotest ages' while the memory of the sovereign went the other way). Still, even to concede this obvious argument is to make it plain that a bad monarch is at least as likely as a bad president even given the caprice of random selection by the hereditary principle...”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We find that the presidency has become too secretive, too powerful, too trammelled, too ceremonial, too impotent or too complicated, depending on the president under discussion or the critic making the analysis. On one thing all are agreed - there is a danger of an 'imperial' or 'monarchical' presidency. An incumbent in Washington knows he is in trouble on the day that cartoonists begin to represent him as a king.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We know that there are people for whom the country and a certain rather mediocre dynasty are in effect unimaginable without one another. There is no need to doubt or mock the sincerity of the conviction. However, there is no reason in our history or our literature to endorse or underwrite it either. We possess an alternative tradition which is capable of outlasting this royal house as it has already outlasted others.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In today's Britain, the idea that there could be a Constitution more powerful - and even sacrosanct - than any crowned head or elected politician (thus abolishing the false antithesis between hereditary monarchs and capricious presidents) is thought of as a breathtakingly new and daring idea.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... I wouldn't have her job'. Those who profess unquenchable love for the sovereign are adamant that she press on in a task that they consider killingly hard.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Humans should not worship other humans at all, but if they must do so it is better that the worshipped ones do not occupy any positions of political power.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Other states in the past sought to conceal this truth from themselves by the exercise of projection - customarily onto a dynasty with supposedly extraordinary powers of healing and unification. This did not save them: indeed historians usually attribute part of the magnitude of the eventual smash to the ingrained, faithful, fatalistic fixation. The supplanting of monarchy, in those circumstances, by new forms of despotism was not the negation of monarchy but the replication of it by societies not yet cured of the addiction.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In their last ditch, the royalists object that this all too bloodless and practical; that people need and want the element of magic and fantasy. Nobody wants life to be charmless. But the element of fantasy and magic is as primitive as it is authentic, and there are good reasons why it should not come from the state. When orchestrated and distributed in that way, it leads to disappointment and rancour, and can lead to the enthronement of sillier or nastier idols.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is this an argument for abolition? Of course it is. But not for an abolition by fiat: for yet another political change that would come as a surprise to the passively governed. It is an invitation to think - are you serious when you say that you cannot imagine life without it? Do you prefer invented tradition, sanitised history, prettified literature, state-sponsored superstition and media-dominated pulses of cheering and jeering?”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A people that began to think as citizens rather than subjects might transcend underdevelopment on their own. Inalienable human right is unique in that it needs no superhuman guarantee; no 'fount' except itself. Only servility requires the realm (suggestive word) of illusion. Illusions, of course, cannot be abolished. But they can and must be outgrown.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And where did anyone get the brainless opinion that the super-rich are too wealthy to steal? ...from Ford to Hughes to Iacocca and Trump and the other tycoon redeemers, we have an exact demonstration that nobody is more covetous and greedy than those who have far too much.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Billionaire Populism" (1992)
“That most risky and volatile of all things—a self-pitying majority.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Appointment in Sarajevo" (1992).
“We have preachers and savants who dilate endlessly on the sanctity of family and childhood but who tolerate a system in which a casual observer can correlate a child's social origin with its physical well-being.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hating Sweden" (1989).
“It was an axiom of "containment" that no part of the known world could be considered neutral. "Neutralism" was among the Cold Warriors' gravest curse words, applied with caustic hostility to India and even France. Those who were not with were against, subjected to intense economic and ideological — and sometimes military — pressure to fall into line.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: How Neo-Conservatives Perish" (1990).
“There is a limit to the success of conservative populism and the exploitation of "little guy" or "silent majority" rhetoric, and it is very often reached because of the emaciated, corrupted personalities of the demagogues themselves.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nixon: Maestro of Resentment" (1990).
“Every campaign, Garry Wills once wrote, "taught Nixon the same lesson: mobilize resentment against those in power." History taught the same to many conservative and reactionary populist movements, whose real attitude to those in power and authority was one of a servile, envious, vicarious adoration.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nixon: Maestro of Resentment" (1990).
“The reading public isn't born that doesn't think foreigners are either funny or faintly sinister.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: P.J. O'Rourke: Not Funny Enough" (1990).
“The conservative aptitude for stressing the "individual responsibility" of all parties except themselves.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Not Funny Enough (2)" (1991).
“The disquieting thing about newscaster-babble or editorial-speak is its ready availability as a serf idiom, a vernacular of deference. "Mr. Secretary, are we any nearer to bringing about a dialogue in this process?”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Politically Correct" (1991).
“What a country, and what a culture, when the liberals cry before they are hurt, and the reactionaries pose as brave nonconformists, while the radicals make a fetish of their own jokey irrelevance.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Politically Correct" (1991).
“If a great city or a great state should fall as the result of an apparent "accident", the there would be a general reason why it required only an accident to make it fall.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No One Left To Lie To" (1991).
“There is a reason for the affected profession of "anarchist sympathies" among Tories and grandees, and of "libertarian principles" by Hobbesian yahoos of the right. Among the former, one sees the upholding of the view that a gentleman's business and property are his own, and none of the government's. Among the latter, a distaste for democracy, for taxation, and for the need to consult others about the planet.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Shouting Anarchy" (1989).
“Perhaps the values of socialists can only be realized by socialists in a nonsocialist society.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Free Market Cargo Cult" (1990).
“The pornography of tough-mindedness, covert action, and preparedness for "peace through strength" has had a predictably hypnotic effect on the legislative branch, turning it from legal watchdog to lapdog.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The State Within the State" (1991).
“Peace through Strength," surely history's most exploded nostrum.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Twilight of Panzerkommunismus" (1988).
“The United States has an isolationist and insular culture, combined with a global and interventionist posture. This highly dangerous and febrile mixture, which greatly facilitates the task of the fear-mongers and chauvinists, needs a very exact and nuanced diagnosis. I don't think that analogies from the totalitarian model, however suggestive, are sufficient.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The 'We' Fallacy" (1988).
“The polls undoubtedly help to decide what people think, but their most important long-term influence may be on how people think. The interrogative process is very distinctly weighted against the asking of an intelligent question or the recording of a thoughtful answer.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Voting in the Passive Voice" (1992).
“Because the man with many monikers in many ways embodies his country and because this election cycle is now so absurd, and so much up for grabs, it is unwise to exclude anything... The best guess has to be that here's a man who hates to be alone, who needs approval and reinforcement, who talks a better game than he plays, who is crude, hyperactive, emotional and optimistic.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Holding the Trump card, A profile of Donald Trump (1999)
“[George W. Bush] is lucky to be governor of Texas. He is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hardball with Chris Matthews, (2000)
“Donald Trump – a ludicrous figure, but at least he’s lived it up a bit in the real world and at least he’s worked out how to cover 90 per cent of his skull with 30 per cent of his hair.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Read one page of Stephen Hawking about the , about the possibility that we will soon know, not where the universe originated, but where it is tended, and the event horizon to which we may all be headed. There is more to inspire awe in one page of Stephen Hawking, than in any of the fantasies of Tertullian, imagining that he could go to the window of heaven, when he was promoted there, and look down, for his consolation, on the torments of the damned. There is much more to be awe-inspired by, in a page of Hawking, than in any number of burning bushes, or other such myths.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Intellectuals never sound more foolish than when posing as the last civilised man.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Egg-Head's Egger-On" (2000).
“The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ireland" (1998).
“All the excitements of a prohibited book had their usual effect, one of which, as always, is to expose the fact that the censors don't know what they are talking about.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Not Dead Yet" (1999).
“That phrase, "loss of innocence," has become stale with overuse and diminishing returns; no other culture is so addicted to this narcissistic impression of itself as having any innocence to lose in the first place.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Road to West Egg" (2000).
“I must say that I've always found the generational emphasis on the way that my youth was covered to be very annoying. There were a lot of other people born in April 1949, and I just don't feel like I have anything in common with most of them. I forget who it was who said that generation -- age group, in other words -- is the most debased form of solidarity. The idea of anyone who was born around that time having an automatic ticket to being called "a '60s person," is annoying to me.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Free radical", interview by Rhys Southan in Reason (November 2001).
“I should perhaps confess that on September 11 last, once I had experienced all the usual mammalian gamut of emotions, from rage to nausea, I also discovered that another sensation was contending for mastery. On examination, and to my own surprise and pleasure, it turned out be exhilaration. Here was the most frightful enemy–theocratic barbarism–in plain view….I realized that if the battle went on until the last day of my life, I would never get bored in prosecuting it to the utmost.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Images in a Rearview Mirror", The Nation (November 15, 2001).
“Bombing Afghanistan back into the Stone Age" was quite a favourite headline for some wobbly liberals... But an instant's thought shows that Afghanistan is being, if anything, bombed OUT of the Stone Age.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source