---
title: "Best Life Quotes by Christopher Hitchens"
description: "86 Life quotes by Christopher Hitchens. Plus more from Christopher Hitchens and more Life sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f91/christopher-hitchens-117_biology_i-m-here-as-a-product-of-process-of-evol_815437.jpg"
---

> [I'm here as a product of process of evolution, which doesn't make very many exceptions. And which rates life relatively cheaply.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/i-m-here-as-a-product-of-process-of-evolution-which-doesn-t-make-very/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [In my life, the only certainty is to be uncertain. I'm an unbeliever who believes in skepticism. I'm only sure about being…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/in-my-life-the-only-certainty-is-to-be-uncertain-i-m-an-unbeliever/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [“The four most over-rated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex, and picnics.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/the-four-most-over-rated-things-in-life-are-champagne-lobster-anal/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [“In Africa, there is a birthrate trap: a higher standard of living will lead to smaller families but smaller families will not…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/in-africa-there-is-a-birthrate-trap-a-higher-standard-of-living-will/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [My political life has been informed by the view that if there was any truth to religion there wouldn't really be any…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/my-political-life-has-been-informed-by-the-view-that-if-there-was-any/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist. And there is no decent or charted way of making a living…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/to-be-in-opposition-is-not-to-be-a-nihilist-and-there-is-no-decent-or/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [Suppose there were groups of secularists at hospitals who went round the terminally ill and urged them to adopt atheism: 'Don't be…](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/)

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> [“ Who are your favorite heroines in real life? The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran who risk their lives and their…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/who-are-your-favorite-heroines-in-real-life-the-women-of-afghanistan/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/27c/christopher-hitchens-117_afghanistan_who-are-your-favorite-heroines-in-real-l_1436841.jpg)

> [We have no proof that Socrates ever existed. We only know from witnesses to his life that he did. Like Jesus, he…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/we-have-no-proof-that-socrates-ever-existed-we-only-know-from/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [It's a better tradition for people who think for themselves and who don't pray in aid of any supernatural authority. That's what…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-s-a-better-tradition-for-people-who-think-for-themselves-and-who/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3e3/christopher-hitchens-117_aids_it-s-a-better-tradition-for-people-who-t_570726.jpg)

> [People are frightened of death, and the central lie of all religion is that there’s a cure for this and an exception…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/people-are-frightened-of-death-and-the-central-lie-of-all-religion-is/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [Well, to the people who pray for me to not only have an agonising death, but then be reborn to have an…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/well-to-the-people-who-pray-for-me-to-not-only-have-an-agonising/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [“But here are wine and beautiful young girls, Be wise and hide your sorrows in their curls, Dive as you will in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/but-here-are-wine-and-beautiful-young-girls-be-wise-and-hide-your/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject nonsense will be excused if the utterer can claim the sanction…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-s-a-curious-thing-in-american-life-that-the-most-abject-nonsense/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e27/christopher-hitchens-117_american-life_it-s-a-curious-thing-in-american-life-th_2941131.jpg)

> [“From Alan Lightman's intricate 1993 novel Einstein's Dreams; set in Berne in 1905: With infinite life comes an infinite list of relatives.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/from-alan-lightman-s-intricate-1993-novel-einstein-s-dreams-set-in/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [“Like so many of life's varieties of experience, the novelty of a diagnosis of malignant cancer has a tendency to wear off.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/like-so-many-of-life-s-varieties-of-experience-the-novelty-of-a/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [“It is sometimes argued that disbelief in a fearful and tempting heavenly despotism makes life into something arid and tedious and cynical:…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/it-is-sometimes-argued-that-disbelief-in-a-fearful-and-tempting/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [“Finally, I want to come to the question of sex. If anything proves that religion is not just man-made but masculine-made, it…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/finally-i-want-to-come-to-the-question-of-sex-if-anything-proves-that/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [“About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/about-once-or-twice-every-month-i-engage-in-public-debates-with-those/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/07c/christopher-hitchens-117_afterlife_about-once-or-twice-every-month-i-engage_2915270.jpg)

> [ “\[O\]ne has to have endured a few decades before wanting, let alone needing, to embark on the project of recovering lost life.… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/o-ne-has-to-have-endured-a-few-decades-before-wanting-let-alone/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/53d/christopher-hitchens-117_age_o-ne-has-to-have-endured-a-few-decades-b_1102939.jpg)

> [“I want to live my life taking the risk - all the time - that I don't know anything like-enough yet, that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/i-want-to-live-my-life-taking-the-risk-all-the-time-that-i-don-t-know/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [“I love the imagery of struggle. I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/i-love-the-imagery-of-struggle-i-sometimes-wish-i-were-suffering-in-a/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4f4/christopher-hitchens-117_adversity_i-love-the-imagery-of-struggle-i-sometim_1567580.jpg)

> [“Once again it is demonstrated that people do not love their chains or their jailers,-and that the aspiration for a civilized life…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/once-again-it-is-demonstrated-that-people-do-not-love-their-chains-or/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6a6/christopher-hitchens-117_life_once-again-it-is-demonstrated-that-peopl_1172582.jpg)

> [The creation story is ridiculous garbage. And has given us a completely false picture of our origin as a species and the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/the-creation-story-is-ridiculous-garbage-and-has-given-us-a/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/83c/christopher-hitchens-117_cosmos_the-creation-story-is-ridiculous-garbage_2991164.jpg)

> [ \[I\]n a place with absolutely no private or personal life, with the incessant worship of a mediocre career-sadist as the only culture,… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/i-n-a-place-with-absolutely-no-private-or-personal-life-with-the/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [I think everybody has had the experience at some point when they feel that there's more to life than just matter. But…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/i-think-everybody-has-had-the-experience-at-some-point-when-they-feel/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [“Don't say that as a boy your grandmother used to read to you, unless at that stage of her life she really…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/don-t-say-that-as-a-boy-your-grandmother-used-to-read-to-you-unless/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/many-more-people-are-poor-and-sick-because-of-the-life-of-mt-even/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6e5/christopher-hitchens-117_church_many-more-people-are-poor-and-sick-becau_2192502.jpg)

> [Even with all the advantages of retrospect, and a lot of witnesses dead and gone, you can't make your life look as…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/even-with-all-the-advantages-of-retrospect-and-a-lot-of-witnesses/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/322/christopher-hitchens-117_advantage_even-with-all-the-advantages-of-retrospe_2172382.jpg)

> [If you want to stay in for the long haul, and lead a life that is free from illusions either propagated by…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/if-you-want-to-stay-in-for-the-long-haul-and-lead-a-life-that-is-free/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b16/christopher-hitchens-117_armor_if-you-want-to-stay-in-for-the-long-haul_1782960.jpg)

> [The advice I've been giving to people all my life - that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/the-advice-i-ve-been-giving-to-people-all-my-life-that-you-may-not-be/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [“as with the normal life, one finds that every passing day represents more and more relentlessly subtracted from less and less. In…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/as-with-the-normal-life-one-finds-that-every-passing-day-represents/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

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> [“Life in Britain had seemed like one long antechamber to a room that had too many barriers to entry; here in the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/life-in-britain-had-seemed-like-one-long-antechamber-to-a-room-that/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/70e/christopher-hitchens-117_america_life-in-britain-had-seemed-like-one-long_2946854.jpg)

> [“Sarah Palin appears to have no testable core conviction except the belief (which none of her defenders denies that she holds, or…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/sarah-palin-appears-to-have-no-testable-core-conviction-except-the/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/fb1/christopher-hitchens-117_atheism_sarah-palin-appears-to-have-no-testable_988817.jpg)

> [“would sometimes say, that if life were made what it might be, by good government and good education, it would be worth…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/would-sometimes-say-that-if-life-were-made-what-it-might-be-by-good/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/51d/christopher-hitchens-117_education_would-sometimes-say-that-if-life-were-ma_746414.jpg)

> [“Arguments for atheism can be divided into two main categories: those that dispute the existence of god and those that demonstrate the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/arguments-for-atheism-can-be-divided-into-two-main-categories-those/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/349/christopher-hitchens-117_existence-of-god_arguments-for-atheism-can-be-divided-int_393241.jpg)

> [“You allege some considerations in favor of a Deity from the universality of a belief in his existence. The superstitions of the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/you-allege-some-considerations-in-favor-of-a-deity-from-the/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ce/christopher-hitchens-117_faith_you-allege-some-considerations-in-favor_1965082.jpg)

> [ “\[Religious belief\] is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/religious-belief-is-a-totalitarian-belief-it-is-the-wish-to-be-a/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d02/christopher-hitchens-117_dead-man_religious-belief-is-a-totalitarian-belie_2768846.jpg)

> [Religion of every kind involves the promise that the misery and futility of existence can be overcome or even transfigured. One might…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/religion-of-every-kind-involves-the-promise-that-the-misery-and/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4ef/christopher-hitchens-117_assurance_religion-of-every-kind-involves-the-prom_2382120.jpg)

> [“One of the juiciest pleasures of life is to be able to salute and embrace, as elected leaders and honored representatives, people…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/one-of-the-juiciest-pleasures-of-life-is-to-be-able-to-salute-and/)

[Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/63e/christopher-hitchens-117_adam-michnik_one-of-the-juiciest-pleasures-of-life-is_808529.jpg)

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## 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/)

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                        "text": "To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist. And there is no decent or charted way of making a living at it. It is something you are, and not something you do.",
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                        "text": "We have no proof that Socrates ever existed. We only know from witnesses to his life that he did. Like Jesus, he never wrote anything down. It doesn't matter to me whether he did or not exist because we have his teachings, his method of thinking, and his extreme intellectual and moral courage.",
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                        "text": "It's a better tradition for people who think for themselves and who don't pray in aid of any supernatural authority. That's what you should be spending your life is in spreading and deepening that tradition.",
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                        "text": "People are frightened of death, and the central lie of all religion is that there’s a cure for this and an exception we’ve made in your own case: an eternal life offered if you make the right propitiations and the right abjections. Well, I’m sorry. I think that it's the height of immorality to lie to people like that. That’s why [religion] survives.",
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                        "text": "It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject nonsense will be excused if the utterer can claim the sanction of religion. A country which forbids an established church by law is prey to any denomination. The best that can be said is that this is pluralism of a kind.",
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                        "text": "“From Alan Lightman's intricate 1993 novel Einstein's Dreams; set in Berne in 1905: With infinite life comes an infinite list of relatives. Grandparents never die, nor do great-grandparents, great-aunts...and so on, back through the generations, all alive and offering advice. Sons never escape from the shadows of their fathers. Nor do daughters of their mothers. No one ever comes into his own...Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free.”",
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                        "text": "“Like so many of life's varieties of experience, the novelty of a diagnosis of malignant cancer has a tendency to wear off. The thing begins to pall, even to become banal. One can become quite used to the specter of the eternal Footman, like some lethal old bore lurking in the hallway at the end of the evening, hoping for the chance to have a word. And I don't so much object to his holding my coat in that marked manner, as if mutely reminding me that it's time to be on my way. No, it's the snickering that gets me down.”",
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                        "text": "“It is sometimes argued that disbelief in a fearful and tempting heavenly despotism makes life into something arid and tedious and cynical: a mere existence without any consolation or any awareness of the numinous or the transcendent. What nonsense this is. In the first place, it commits an obvious error. It seems to say that we ought not to believe that we are an evolved animal species with faulty components and a short lifespan for ourselves and our globe, lest the consequences of the belief be unwelcome or discreditable to us. Could anything show more clearly the bad effects of wish-thinking? There can be no serious ethical position based on denial or a refusal to look the facts squarely in the face. But this does not mean that we must stare into the abyss all the time. (Only religion, oddly enough, has ever required that we obsessively do that.)”",
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                        "text": "“Finally, I want to come to the question of sex. If anything proves that religion is not just man-made but masculine-made, it is the incessant repetition of rules and taboos governing the sexual life. The disease is pervasive, from the weird obsession with virginity and the one-way birth canal through which prophets are “delivered,” through the horror of menstrual blood, all the way to the fascinated disgust with homosexuality and the pretended concern with children (who suffer worse at the hands of the faithful than any other group). Male and female genital mutilation; the terrifying of infants with hideous fictions about guilt and hell; the wild prohibition of masturbation: religion will never be able to live down the shame with which it has stained itself for generations in this regard, anymore than it can purge its own guilt for the ruining of formative periods of precious life.”",
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                        "text": "“About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough—and even miraculous enough if you insist—I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about? Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don't believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart's content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for the respect of others—while in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity—so the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities… but there, there. Enough.”",
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                        "text": "“[O]ne has to have endured a few decades before wanting, let alone needing, to embark on the project of recovering lost life. And I think it may be possible to review 'the chronicles of wasted time.' William Morris wrote in The Dream of John Ball that men fight for things and then lose the battle, only to win it again in a shape and form that they had not expected, and then be compelled again to defend it under another name. We are all of us very good at self-persuasion and I strive to be alert to its traps, but a version of what Hegel called 'the cunning of history' is a parallel commentary that I fight to keep alive in my mind.”",
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                        "text": "“I want to live my life taking the risk - all the time - that I don't know anything like-enough yet, that I haven't understood enough, that I can't know enough, that I'm always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom...Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you.”",
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                        "text": "“I love the imagery of struggle. I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient. Allow me to inform you, though, that when you sit in a room with a set of other finalists, and kindly people bring a huge transparent bag of poison and plug it into your arm, and you either read or don't read a book while the venom sack gradually empties itself into your system, the image of the ardent solider is the very last one that will occur to you. You feel swamped with passivity and impotence: dissolving in powerlessness like a sugar lump in water.”",
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                        "text": "“Once again it is demonstrated that people do not love their chains or their jailers,-and that the aspiration for a civilized life - that \"universal eligibility to be noble,\" as Saul Bellow's Augie March so imperishably phrases it - is proper and common to all.”",
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                        "text": "The creation story is ridiculous garbage. And has given us a completely false picture of our origin as a species and the origins of the cosmos. If you want a good mythical story it would be the life of Socrates.",
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                        "text": "[I]n a place with absolutely no private or personal life, with the incessant worship of a mediocre career-sadist as the only culture, where all citizens are the permanent property of the state, the highest form of pointlessness has been achieved.",
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                        "text": "I think everybody has had the experience at some point when they feel that there's more to life than just matter. But I think it's very important to keep that under control and not to hand it over to be exploited by priests and shamans and rabbis and other riffraff.",
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                        "text": "“Don't say that as a boy your grandmother used to read to you, unless at that stage of her life she really was a boy, in which case you have probably thrown away a better intro.”",
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                        "text": "Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.",
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                        "text": "Even with all the advantages of retrospect, and a lot of witnesses dead and gone, you can't make your life look as if you intended it or you were consistent. All you can show is how you dealt with various hands.",
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                        "text": "If you want to stay in for the long haul, and lead a life that is free from illusions either propagated by you or embraced by you, then I suggest you learn to recognize and avoid the symptoms of the zealot and the person who knows he is right. For the dissenter, the skeptical mentality is at least as important as any armor of principle.",
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                        "text": "The advice I've been giving to people all my life - that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the dialectic is interested in you; you can't give up politics, it won't give you up - was the advice I should have been taking myself.",
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                        "text": "“as with the normal life, one finds that every passing day represents more and more relentlessly subtracted from less and less. In other words, the process both etiolates you and moves you nearer toward death. How could it be otherwise?”",
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                        "text": "“Life in Britain had seemed like one long antechamber to a room that had too many barriers to entry; here in the USA it seemed to be true that if you dared to give things 'your best shot' then the other much-used phrases like 'land of opportunity' would kick in as well.”",
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                        "text": "“Sarah Palin appears to have no testable core conviction except the belief (which none of her defenders denies that she holds, or at least has held and not yet repudiated) that the end of days and the Second Coming will occur in her lifetime. This completes the already strong case for allowing her to pass the rest of her natural life span as a private citizen.”",
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                        "text": "“would sometimes say, that if life were made what it might be, by good government and good education, it would be worth having: but he never spoke with anything like enthusiasm even of that possibility. He never varied in rating intellectual enjoyments above all others, even in value as pleasures, independently of their ulterior benefits. The pleasures of the benevolent affections he placed high in the scale; and used to say, that he had never known a happy old man, except those who were able to live over again in the pleasures of the young. For passionate emotions of all sorts, and for everything which has been said or written in exaltation of them, he professed the greatest contempt. He regarded them as a form of madness. “The intense” was with him a bye-word of scornful disapprobation. He regarded as an aberration of the moral standard of modern times, compared with that of the ancients, the great stress laid upon feeling. Feelings, as such, he considered to be no proper subjects of praise or blame. Right and”",
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                        "text": "“Arguments for atheism can be divided into two main categories: those that dispute the existence of god and those that demonstrate the ill effects of religion. It might be better if I broadened this somewhat, and said those that dispute the existence of an intervening god. Religion is, after all, more than the belief in a supreme being. It is the cult of that supreme being and the belief that his or her wishes have been made known or can be determined. Defining matters in this way, I can allow myself to mention great critics such as Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, who perhaps paradoxically regarded religion as an insult to god.”",
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                        "text": "“You allege some considerations in favor of a Deity from the universality of a belief in his existence. The superstitions of the savage, and the religion of civilized Europe appear to you to conspire to prove a first cause. I maintain that it is from the evidence of revelation alone that this belief derives the slightest countenance. That credulity should be gross in proportion to the ignorance of the mind that it enslaves, is in strict consistency with the principles of human nature. The idiot, the child and the savage, agree in attributing their own passions and propensities to the inanimate substances by which they are either benefited or injured. The former become Gods and the latter Demons; hence prayers and sacrifices, by the means of which the rude Theologian imagines that he may confirm the benevolence of the one, or mitigate the malignity of the other. He has averted the wrath of a powerful enemy by supplications and submission; he has secured the assistance of his neighbour by offerings; he has felt his own anger subside before the entreaties of a vanquished foe, and has cherished gratitude for the kindness of another. Therefore does he believe that the elements will listen to his vows. He is capable of love and hatred towards his fellow beings, and is variously impelled by those principles to benefit or injure them. The source of his error is sufficiently obvious. When the winds, the waves and the atmosphere act in such a manner as to thwart or forward his designs, he attributes to them the same propensities of whose existence within himself he is conscious when he is instigated by benefits to kindness, or by injuries to revenge. The bigot of the woods can form no conception of beings possessed of properties differing from his own: it requires, indeed, a mind considerably tinctured with science, and enlarged by cultivation to contemplate itself, not as the centre and model of the Universe, but as one of the infinitely various multitude of beings of which it is actually composed.”",
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                        "text": "“[Religious belief] is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you - who must, indeed, subject you - to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life - I say, of your life - before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead. A celestial North Korea. Who wants this to be true? Who but a slave desires such a ghastly fate? I've been to North Korea. It has a dead man as its president, Kim Jong-Il is only head of the party and head of the army. He's not head of the state. That office belongs to his deceased father, Kim Il-Sung. It's a necrocracy, a thanatocracy. It's one short of a trinity I might add. The son is the reincarnation of the father. It is the most revolting and utter and absolute and heartless tyranny the human species has ever evolved. But at least you can fucking die and leave North Korea!”",
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                        "text": "Religion of every kind involves the promise that the misery and futility of existence can be overcome or even transfigured. One might suppose that the possession of such a magnificent formula, combined with the tremendous assurance of a benevolent God, would make a person happy. But such appears not to be the case.: unease and insecurity and rage seem to keep up with blissful certainty, and even to outpace it.",
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                        "text": "“One of the juiciest pleasures of life is to be able to salute and embrace, as elected leaders and honored representatives, people whom you first met when they were on the run or in exile or (like Adam) in and out of jail. I was to have this experience again, and I hope to have it many more times in the future: it sometimes allows me to feel that life is full of point.”",
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