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e01a3c8 You don't say 'they all do it' unless you know you've been doing it too. guilt politics Christopher Hitchens
fc3c61f Many readers are familiar with the spirit and the letter of the definition of "prayer", as given by Ambrose Bierce in his Devil's Dictionary. It runs like this, and is extremely easy to comprehend: Prayer: A petition that the laws of nature be suspended in favor of the petitioner; himself confessedly unworthy. Everybody can see the joke that is lodged within this entry: The man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters .. Christopher Hitchens
8de3b15 mass indoctrination of uneducated young men with such ideas is in itself a lethal danger to society and to international order. Christopher Hitchens
8fec59b Actually, the "leap of faith"--to give it the memorable name that Soren Kierkegaard bestowed upon it--is an imposture. As he himself pointed out, it is not a "leap" that can be made once and for all. It is a leap that has to go on and on being performed, in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary. This effort is actually too much for the human mind, and leads to delusions and manias. Religion understands perfectly well that the "leap" is.. confected-proofs evidence faith leap-of-faith miracles religion revelations Christopher Hitchens
fefa8cf Watching the towers fall in New York, with civilians incinerated on the planes and in the buildings, I felt something that I couldn't analyze at first and didn't fully grasp (partly because I was far from my family in Washington, who had a very grueling day) until the day itself was nearly over. I am only slightly embarrassed to tell you that this was a feeling of exhilaration. Here we are then, I was thinking, in a war to the finish betwee.. new-york september-11-attacks terrorism war war-on-terror washington-dc Christopher Hitchens
f81ee1e The last time that I consciously wrote anything to 'save the honor of the Left', as I rather pompously put it, was my little book on the crookedness and cowardice and corruption (to put it no higher) of Clinton. I used leftist categories to measure him, in other words, and to show how idiotic was the belief that he was a liberal's champion. Again, more leftists than you might think were on my side or in my corner, and the book was published.. arkansas bill-clinton corruption cowardice debate delusion idiocy impeachment-of-bill-clinton leftism lewinsky-scandal liberalism mccarthyism new-left-review sex verso-books witch-hunt Christopher Hitchens
cca2b67 Shrouded as he was for a decade in an apparent cloak of anonymity and obscurity, Osama bin Laden was by no means an invisible man. He was ubiquitous and palpable, both in a physical and a cyber-spectral form, to the extent that his death took on something of the feel of an exorcism. It is satisfying to know that, before the end came, he had begun at least to guess at the magnitude of his 9/11 mistake. It is essential to remember that his mo.. abu-musab-al-zarqawi al-qaeda al-qaeda-in-iraq arab-spring death death-of-osama-bin-laden exorcism feminism iraq islamism life literature music osama-bin-laden pakistan secularism september-11-attacks sunni-islam terrorism theocracy Christopher Hitchens
47fa181 Allow a friend to believe in a bogus prospectus or a false promise and you cease, after a short while, to be a friend at all. How dare you intervene? As well ask, How dare you not? Christopher Hitchens
2ee9741 but now that I view the scene in retrospect I see it as a very gentle and firm deportation, taking me from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady. Christopher Hitchens
01d88da There must be some connection between the general nullity of Christie's prose and the tendency of her detectives to take Jewishness as a symptom of crime. antisemitism Christopher Hitchens
2e57d33 Suppose that we agree that the two atrocities can or may be mentioned in the same breath. Why should we do so? I wrote at the time ( , October 5, 1998) that Osama bin Laden 'hopes to bring a "judgmental" monotheism of his own to bear on these United States.' Chomsky's recent version of this is 'considering the grievances expressed by people of the Middle East region.' In my version, then as now, one confronts an enemy who wishes ill to our .. al-shifa-pharmaceutical-factory despotism emotion islam islamic-terrorism middle-east monotheism noam-chomsky osama-bin-laden propaganda religion september-11-attacks terrorism the-nation theocracy united-states war war-crimes Christopher Hitchens
d2495c5 Bloomberg does not support the measure to silence the useless and maddening car alarm: he would rather impose himself on people than on mechanical devices. big-government car-alarms cars law mayoralty-of-michael-bloomberg michael-bloomberg pettiness tyranny Christopher Hitchens
38b76ed Fuck off," some of them seem to be yelling at coalition forces. A lot hinges on the appropriate military response. "Fuck you" might be risky. "OK, off we fuck, then" might buy some valuable time." very-dirty-word Christopher Hitchens
290a950 Would you have wished more, or fewer, anarchists around in the Thousand Year Reich or any of the other fantasies of hierarchy? hierarchy nazi-germany Christopher Hitchens
7d454ae Playing pool with Korean officials one evening in the Koryo Hotel, which has become the nightspot for foreign businessmen and an increasing number of diplomats (to say nothing of the burgeoning number of spies and journalists traveling under second identities), I was handed that day's edition of the . At first glance it seemed too laughable for words: endless pictures of the 'Dear Leader'--Little Boy's exalted title--as he was garlanded by.. casinos diplomacy espionage journalism kim-jong-il koryo-hotel north-korea north-korea-and-wmd north-korean-famine pool propaganda prostitution prostitution-in-north-korea pyongyang serbia serbian-election-2000 the-pyongyang-times united-states Christopher Hitchens
8f3d166 If the Bahreini royal family can have an embassy, a state, and a seat at the UN, why should the twenty-five million Kurds not have a claim to autonomy? The alleviation of their suffering and the assertion of their self-government is one of the few unarguable benefits of regime change in Iraq. It is not a position from which any moral retreat would be allowable. autonomy bahrain iraq iraq-war kurdish-people kurdistan morality royalty statehood Christopher Hitchens
028d625 I can claim copyright only in myself, and occasionally in those who are either dead or have written about the same events, or who have a decent expectation of anonymity, or who are such appalling public shits that they have forfeited their right to bitch. autobiography Christopher Hitchens
d32225d Americans. They came right out with things. Hitchens family lore related the tale of how once, when I was but a toddler, my parents were passing with me through an airport and ran into some Yanks. 'Real cute kid,' said these big and brash people without troubling to make a formal introduction. They insisted on photographing me and, before breaking off to resume their American lives, pressed into my dimpled fist a signed dollar bill in token.. Christopher Hitchens
db5ba57 It doesn't happen to me anymore, because a fresh generation of Africans and Asians has arisen to take over the business, but in my early years in Washington, D.C., I would often find myself in the back of a big beat-up old cab driven by an African-American veteran. I became used to the formalities of the : on some hot and drowsy Dixie-like afternoon I would flag down a flaking Chevy. Behind the wheel, leaning wa-aay back and relaxed, often.. england united-states world-war-ii Christopher Hitchens
2507861 How sad to be a woman--not to know Aught of the glory of this breast of snow, All unconcerned to comb this mighty hair; To be a woman and yet never know! Were I a woman, I would all day long Sing my own beauty in some holy song, Bend low before it, hushed and half afraid, And say "I am a woman" all day long." Christopher Hitchens
db248a8 It's like a memorial to Atlantis or Lyonesse: these are the stone buoys that mark a drowned world. cemetery death lyonesse tombstones wrocław Christopher Hitchens
c779cb5 I respect those who say that the United States should simply withdraw from the Middle East, but I don't respect them for anything but their honesty. isolationism middle-east noninterventionism Christopher Hitchens
5c2db55 I am sometimes asked about the concept or definition of a 'public intellectual,' and though I find the whole idea faintly silly, I believe it should ideally mean that the person so identified is self-sustaining and autonomously financed. Susan was pre-eminently one such. susan-sontag Christopher Hitchens
d12b120 The last time I heard an orthodox Marxist statement that was music to my ears was from a member of the Rwanda Patriotic Front, during the mass slaughter in the country. 'The terms Hutu and Tutsi,' he said severely, 'are merely ideological constructs, describing different relationships to the means and mode of production.' But of course! ideology marxism rwanda rwandan-genocide rwandan-patriotic-front tutsis Christopher Hitchens
702b062 What people still do not like to admit is that there were two crimes in the form of one. Just as the destruction of Jewry was the necessary condition for the rise and expansion of Nazism, so . I first noticed this point when reading an essay by the late Ernest Gellner, who at the end of the war had warned Eastern Europeans that collective punishment of Germans would put them under Stalin's tutelage indefinitely. They would always feel the .. eastern-european ernest-gellner ethnic-cleansing genocide germans holocaust jews nazism poland revenge stalin stalinism war world-war-ii Christopher Hitchens
94ccbff If my mother's intention in whole or in part was to ensure that I never had to suffer any indignity or embarrassment for being a Jew, then she succeeded well enough. And in any case there were enough intermarriages and 'conversions' on both sides of her line to make me one of those many hybrids who are to be found distributed all over the known world. And, as someone who doesn't really believe that the human species is subdivided by 'race.. intermarriage jews mothers nationality race religion religious-conversions rhetorical-questions Christopher Hitchens
059fa50 In Sarajevo in 1992, while being shown around the starved, bombarded city by the incomparable John Burns, I experienced four near misses in all, three of them in the course of one day. I certainly thought that the Bosnian cause was worth fighting for and worth defending, but I could not take myself seriously enough to imagine that my own demise would have forwarded the cause. (I also discovered that a famous jaunty Churchillism had its limi.. bosnia bosnian-war bullets causes churchill death john-burns martyrdom mortars near-death-experience sarajevo siege-of-sarajevo war Christopher Hitchens
ecfb25c I certainly didn't concur with Edward on everything, but I was damned if I would hear him abused without saying a word. And I think this may be worth setting down, because there are other allegiances that can be stress-tested in comparable ways. It used to be a slight hallmark of being English or British that one didn't make a big thing out of patriotic allegiance, and was indeed brimful of sarcastic and critical remarks about the old count.. britain britishness camus edward-said family friendship jewishness loyalty patriotism Christopher Hitchens
37b4864 There is no such thing as notoriety in the United States these days, let alone infamy. Celebrity is all. andy-warhol celebrity notoriety united-states Christopher Hitchens
038377a Incidentally, I have also learned a bit about the importance of avoiding feminine embarrassment ('Daddy,' wrote Sophia when she enrolled at the New School where I teach, 'people will ask "why is old Christopher Hitchens kissing that girl?"') and shall now cease and desist." fatherhood fathers-and-daughters kisses parenthood the-new-school women Christopher Hitchens
6e9a0be An astrologer of a London tabloid was once fired by means of a letter from his editor which began, "As you will no doubt have foreseen.")" -- Christopher Hitchens
df37048 In his book , written in 1951-2 and published in the West in 1953, the Polish poet and essayist Czeslaw Milosz paid Orwell one of the greatest compliments that one writer has ever bestowed upon another. Milosz had seen the Stalinisation of Eastern Europe from the inside, as a cultural official. He wrote, of his fellow-sufferers: communism czeslaw-milosz george-orwell nineteen-eighty-four russia totalitarianism Christopher Hitchens
73d1633 The suspicion that a calamity might also be a punishment is further useful in that it allows an infinity of speculation. After New Orleans, which suffered from a lethal combination of being built below sea level and neglected by the Bush administration, I learned from a senior rabbi in Israel that it was revenge for the evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, and from the mayor of New Orleans (who had not performed his own job wi.. Christopher Hitchens
7722a4d In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind old men as guides. --HEINRICH HEINE, GEDANKEN UND EINFALLE Christopher Hitchens
b34b769 Control over the production and distribution of oil is the decisive factor in defining who rules whom in the Middle East. middle-east oil oil-reserves petroleum petroleum-politics politics Christopher Hitchens
9fae599 There was a time in my life when I did a fair bit of work for the tempestuous Lucretia Stewart, then editor of the American Express travel magazine, . Together, we evolved a harmless satire of the slightly driveling style employed by the journalists of tourism. 'Land of Contrasts' was our shorthand for it. ('Jerusalem: an enthralling blend of old and new.' 'South Africa: a harmony in black and white.' 'Belfast, where ancient meets modern.'.. antiwar-movement apartheid kosovo kosovo-war pacifism racism slobodan-milosevic south-africa war war-in-afghanistan-2001-present Christopher Hitchens
d0844a3 In effect, nobody who is not from the losing classes has ever been thrust into a death cell in these United States. capital-punishment capital-punishment-in-the-us social-class united-states Christopher Hitchens
18fa726 One must avoid snobbery and misanthropy. But one must also be unafraid to criticise those who reach for the lowest common denominator, and who sometimes succeed in finding it. This criticism would be effortless if there were no "people" waiting for just such an appeal. Any fool can lampoon a king or a bishop or a billionaire. A trifle more grit is required to face down a mob, or even a studio audience that has decided it knows what it wants.. dissent politics rebellion strength wisdom Christopher Hitchens
7d6818e The pre-history of our species is hag-ridden with episodes of nightmarish ignorance and calamity, for which religion used to identify, not just the wrong explanation but the wrong culprit. Human sacrifices were made preeminently in times of epidemics, useless prayers were uttered, bogus "miracles" attested to, and scapegoats--such as Jews or witches--hunted down and burned." religion Christopher Hitchens
7e8a364 A saving grace of the human condition (if I may phrase it like that) is a sense of humor. Many writers and witnesses, guessing the connection between sexual repression and religious fervor, have managed to rescue themselves and others from its deadly grip by the exercise of wit. And much of religion is so laughable on its face that writers from Voltaire to Bertrand Russell to Chapman Cohen have had great fun at its expense. In our own day, .. Christopher Hitchens
3c2f4bf In January 1821, Thomas Jefferson wrote John Adams to "encourage a hope that the human mind will some day get back to the freedom it enjoyed 2000 years ago." This wish for a return to the era of philosophy would put Jefferson in the same period as Titus Lucretius Carus, thanks to whose six-volume poem De Rerum Naturum (On the Nature of Things) we have a distillation of the work of the first true materialists: Leucippus, Democritus, and Epic.. Christopher Hitchens
f9f4eed Believing then ... that human life is actually worth living, one can combat one's natural pessimism by stoicism and the refusal of illusion, while embellishing the scene with any one of the following. There are the beauties of science and the extraordinary marvels of nature. There is the consolation and irony of philosophy. There are the infinite splendors of literature and poetry, not excluding the liturgical and devotional aspects of thes.. Christopher Hitchens
364698b To all those who I do not know, and who live in the worlds where superstition and barbarism are still dominant, and into whose hands I hope this little book may fall, I offer the modest encouragement of an older wisdom. It is in fact this, and not any arrogant preaching that come to us out of the whirlwind: "Die stimme der vernunft ist leise". Yes, The voice of reason is very soft, but it is very persistent. In this, and in the lives and m.. inspirational resistance Christopher Hitchens
2c297a3 The United States makes large claims for itself, among them the claim that the nation is the model for a society based simultaneously on democracy and multiethnicity. It's certainly no exaggeration to say that on the success or failure of this principle much else depends. But there must be better ways of affirming it than by clinging to an insipid parody of a two-party system that counts as a virtue the ability to escape thorny questions an.. Christopher Hitchens
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