--- title: "3 Karl Marx Quotes By Christopher Hitchens" description: "3 Karl Marx quotes by Christopher Hitchens. Plus more from Christopher Hitchens and more Karl Marx sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/744/christopher-hitchens-117_argentina_people-spoke-to-foreigners-with-an-avert_1579094.jpg" --- > [“People spoke to foreigners with an averted gaze, and everybody seemed to know somebody who had just vanished. The rumors of what…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/people-spoke-to-foreigners-with-an-averted-gaze-and-everybody-seemed/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/744/christopher-hitchens-117_argentina_people-spoke-to-foreigners-with-an-avert_1579094.jpg) > [“Many also forget that the international campaign in solidarity with the Union under the Lincoln presidency rallied at a time when it…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/many-also-forget-that-the-international-campaign-in-solidarity-with/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/19d/christopher-hitchens-117_confederacy_many-also-forget-that-the-international_3053910.jpg) > [“It’s quite a task to combat the absolutists and the relativists at the same time: to maintain that there is no totalitarian…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-s-quite-a-task-to-combat-the-absolutists-and-the-relativists-at/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d57/christopher-hitchens-117_faith_it-s-quite-a-task-to-combat-the-absoluti_3231806.jpg) ## Other authors on Karl Marx ## More by Christopher Hitchens > [“The spirit of our accurate and exact philosophy is outraged by conclusions that contradict each other so glaringly.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/the-spirit-of-our-accurate-and-exact-philosophy-is-outraged-by/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [“Many governments employ torture but this was the first time that the element of Saturnalia and pornography in the process had been made so…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/many-governments-employ-torture-but-this-was-the-first-time-that-the/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [ 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… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-s-los-angeles-mostly-full-of-nonsense-and-delusion-and-egomania/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/to-be-against-rationalization-is-not-the-same-as-to-be-opposed-to/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [ \[Religion\] attacks us in our deepest integrity - the core of our self-respect. Religion says that we would not know right from wrong, we… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/religion-attacks-us-in-our-deepest-integrity-the-core-of-our-self/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [“In the very recent past, we have seen the Church of Rome befouled by its complicity with the unpardonable sin of child rape, or,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/in-the-very-recent-past-we-have-seen-the-church-of-rome-befouled-by/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-s-surprising-to-me-how-many-of-my-friends-send-christmas-cards-or/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [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…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/suppose-there-were-groups-of-secularists-at-hospitals-who-went-round/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [There are, after all, atheists who say they wish the fable were true but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or who have…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/there-are-after-all-atheists-who-say-they-wish-the-fable-were-true/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [“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.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-isn-t-so-long-since-a-test-of-anglican-orthodoxy-was-applied-to/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [Gullibility and credulity are considered undesireable qualities in every department of human life - except religion ... Why are we praised by godly men…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/gullibility-and-credulity-are-considered-undesireable-qualities-in/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [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…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-s-much-worse-to-see-a-woman-drunk-than-a-man-i-don-t-know-quite/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [It's true that obscenity is a matter of taste and in the eye of the beholder.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-s-true-that-obscenity-is-a-matter-of-taste-and-in-the-eye-of-the/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [I worked out early on to give up things I couldn't do well at all.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/i-worked-out-early-on-to-give-up-things-i-couldn-t-do-well-at-all/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) > [Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that - or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/writing-is-what-s-important-to-me-and-anything-that-helps-me-do-that/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/karl-marx/christopher-hitchens/#itemlist", "name": "3 Karl Marx Quotes By Christopher Hitchens", "numberOfItems": 3, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“People spoke to foreigners with an averted gaze, and everybody seemed to know somebody who had just vanished. The rumors of what had happened to them were fantastic and bizarre though, as it turned out, they were only an understatement of the real thing. Before going to see General Videla […], I went to […] check in with Los Madres : the black-draped mothers who paraded, every week, with pictures of their missing loved ones in the Plaza Mayo. ( ‘Todo mi familia!’ as one elderly lady kept telling me imploringly, as she flourished their photographs. ‘Todo mi familia!’ ) From these and from other relatives and friends I got a line of questioning to put to the general. I would be told by him, they forewarned me, that people ‘disappeared’ all the time, either because of traffic accidents and family quarrels or, in the dire civil-war circumstances of Argentina, because of the wish to drop out of a gang and the need to avoid one’s former associates. But this was a cover story. Most of those who disappeared were openly taken away in the unmarked Ford Falcon cars of the Buenos Aires military police. I should inquire of the general what precisely had happened to Claudia Inez Grumberg, a paraplegic who was unable to move on her own but who had last been seen in the hands of his ever-vigilant armed forces [….] I possess a picture of the encounter that still makes me want to spew: there stands the killer and torturer and rape-profiteer, as if to illustrate some seminar on the banality of evil. Bony-thin and mediocre in appearance, with a scrubby moustache, he looks for all the world like a cretin impersonating a toothbrush. I am gripping his hand in a much too unctuous manner and smiling as if genuinely delighted at the introduction. Aching to expunge this humiliation, I waited while he went almost pedantically through the predicted script, waving away the rumored but doubtless regrettable dematerializations that were said to be afflicting his fellow Argentines. And then I asked him about Senorita Grumberg. He replied that if what I had said was true, then I should remember that ‘terrorism is not just killing with a bomb, but activating ideas. Maybe that’s why she’s detained.’ I expressed astonishment at this reply and, evidently thinking that I hadn’t understood him the first time, Videla enlarged on the theme. ‘We consider it a great crime to work against the Western and Christian style of life: it is not just the bomber but the ideologist who is the danger.’ Behind him, I could see one or two of his brighter staff officers looking at me with stark hostility as they realized that the general— El Presidente —had made a mistake by speaking so candidly. […] In response to a follow-up question, Videla crassly denied— ‘rotondamente’ : ‘roundly’ denied—holding Jacobo Timerman ‘as either a journalist or a Jew.’ While we were having this surreal exchange, here is what Timerman was being told by his taunting tormentors: Argentina has three main enemies: Karl Marx, because he tried to destroy the Christian concept of society; Sigmund Freud, because he tried to destroy the Christian concept of the family; and Albert Einstein, because he tried to destroy the Christian concept of time and space. […] We later discovered what happened to the majority of those who had been held and tortured in the secret prisons of the regime. According to a Navy captain named Adolfo Scilingo, who published a book of confessions, these broken victims were often destroyed as ‘evidence’ by being flown out way over the wastes of the South Atlantic and flung from airplanes into the freezing water below. Imagine the fun element when there’s the surprise bonus of a Jewish female prisoner in a wheelchair to be disposed of… we slide open the door and get ready to roll her and then it’s one, two, three… go!”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/people-spoke-to-foreigners-with-an-averted-gaze-and-everybody-seemed/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/744/christopher-hitchens-117_argentina_people-spoke-to-foreigners-with-an-avert_1579094.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/744/christopher-hitchens-117_argentina_people-spoke-to-foreigners-with-an-avert_1579094.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/744/christopher-hitchens-117_argentina_people-spoke-to-foreigners-with-an-avert_1579094.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“People spoke to foreigners with an averted gaze, and everybody seemed to know somebody who had just…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Many also forget that the international campaign in solidarity with the Union under the Lincoln presidency rallied at a time when it was entirely possible that the United Kingdom might have thrown its whole weight behind the Confederacy and even moved troops from Canada to hasten the partition of a country half slave and half free. This is often forgotten, I suggest, because the movement of solidarity was partly led by Karl Marx and his European allies (as was gratefully acknowledged by Henry Adams in his Education)”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/many-also-forget-that-the-international-campaign-in-solidarity-with/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/19d/christopher-hitchens-117_confederacy_many-also-forget-that-the-international_3053910.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/19d/christopher-hitchens-117_confederacy_many-also-forget-that-the-international_3053910.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/19d/christopher-hitchens-117_confederacy_many-also-forget-that-the-international_3053910.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Many also forget that the international campaign in solidarity with the Union under the Lincoln presidency…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“It’s quite a task to combat the absolutists and the relativists at the same time: to maintain that there is no totalitarian solution while also insisting that, yes, we on our side also have unalterable convictions and are willing to fight for them. After various past allegiances, I have come to believe that Karl Marx was rightist of all when he recommended continual doubt and self-criticism. Member in the skeptical faction or tendency is not at all a soft option. The defense of science and reason is the great imperative of our time… To be an unbeliever is not merely to be “open-minded.” It is, rather, a decisive admission of uncertainty that is dialectically connected to the repudiation of the totalitarian principle, in the mind as well as in politics. But that’s my Hitch-22. I have already described some of my rehearsals for this war… and for the remainder of my days I shall be happy enough to see if I can emulate the understatement of Commander Hitchens, and to say that at least I know what I am supposed to be doing.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-s-quite-a-task-to-combat-the-absolutists-and-the-relativists-at/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d57/christopher-hitchens-117_faith_it-s-quite-a-task-to-combat-the-absoluti_3231806.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d57/christopher-hitchens-117_faith_it-s-quite-a-task-to-combat-the-absoluti_3231806.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d57/christopher-hitchens-117_faith_it-s-quite-a-task-to-combat-the-absoluti_3231806.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“It’s quite a task to combat the absolutists and the relativists at the same time: to maintain that there is…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/karl-marx/christopher-hitchens/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/karl-marx/christopher-hitchens/", "name": "Karl Marx Quotes by Christopher Hitchens", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/karl-marx/christopher-hitchens/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/744/christopher-hitchens-117_argentina_people-spoke-to-foreigners-with-an-avert_1579094.jpg" }, "description": "3 Karl Marx quotes by Christopher Hitchens. 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