“The essential principle of totalitarianism is to make laws that are impossible to obey.” — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
The Iraqi Baath Socialist Party was modelled in large part on admiration for European National Socialist and Fascist movements, hoped to emulate… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
Hannah Arendt in her study of totalitarianism borrowed from Immanuel Kant the concept of radical evil, of evil that's so evil that… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“I was hungry when I left Pyongyang. I wasn't hungry just for a bookshop that sold books that weren't about Fat Man… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“Well, as Hannah Arendt famously said, there can be a banal aspect to evil. In other words, it doesn't present always. I… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“It was sometimes feebly argued, as the political and military war against this enemy ran into difficulties, that it was 'a war… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“It's not always a question of you changing your mind. I think very often your mind changes you. You suddenly realise that… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“Sooner or later, all talk among foreigners in Pyongyang turns to one imponderable subject. Do the locals really believe what they are… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“I saw exactly one picture of Marx and one of Lenin in my whole stay, but it's been a long time since… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“The North Korean capital, Pyongyang, is a city consecrated to the worship of a father-son dynasty. (I came to think of them,… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“Very often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the course… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“The spirit of our accurate and exact philosophy is outraged by conclusions that contradict each other so glaringly.” — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
“Many governments employ torture but this was the first time that the element of Saturnalia and pornography in the process had been made so… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
It's [Los Angeles] mostly full of nonsense and delusion and egomania. They think they'll be young and beautiful forever, even though most of them… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning. — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
[Religion] attacks us in our deepest integrity - the core of our self-respect. Religion says that we would not know right from wrong, we… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
“In the very recent past, we have seen the Church of Rome befouled by its complicity with the unpardonable sin of child rape, or,… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends. — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
Suppose there were groups of secularists at hospitals who went round the terminally ill and urged them to adopt atheism: 'Don't be a mug… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
There are, after all, atheists who say they wish the fable were true but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or who have… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
“It isn’t so long since a test of Anglican orthodoxy was applied to anyone seeking to study or teach at Oxford and Cambridge universities.… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
Gullibility and credulity are considered undesireable qualities in every department of human life - except religion ... Why are we praised by godly men… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
It's true that obscenity is a matter of taste and in the eye of the beholder. — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that - or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
