--- title: "3 1970s Quotes By Christopher Hitchens" description: "3 1970s quotes by Christopher Hitchens. Plus more from Christopher Hitchens and more 1970s sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/841/christopher-hitchens-117_1970s_well-as-hannah-arendt-famously-said-ther_253303.jpg" --- > [“Well, as Hannah Arendt famously said, there can be a banal aspect to evil. In other words, it doesn't present always. I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/well-as-hannah-arendt-famously-said-there-can-be-a-banal-aspect-to/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/841/christopher-hitchens-117_1970s_well-as-hannah-arendt-famously-said-ther_253303.jpg) > [“Very often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the course…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/very-often-the-test-of-one-s-allegiance-to-a-cause-or-to-a-people-is/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/12e/christopher-hitchens-117_1950s_very-often-the-test-of-one-s-allegiance_369954.jpg) > [“I can remember when I was a bit of an ETA fan myself. It was in 1973, when a group of Basque…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/i-can-remember-when-i-was-a-bit-of-an-eta-fan-myself-it-was-in-1973/) [Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/christopher-hitchens/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/28b/christopher-hitchens-117_1970s_i-can-remember-when-i-was-a-bit-of-an-et_2488094.jpg) ## 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/zz-1970s/christopher-hitchens/#itemlist", "name": "3 1970s Quotes By Christopher Hitchens", "numberOfItems": 3, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Well, as Hannah Arendt famously said, there can be a banal aspect to evil. In other words, it doesn't present always. I mean, often what you're meeting is a very mediocre person. But nonetheless, you can get a sort of frisson of wickedness from them. And the best combination of those, I think, I describe him in the book, is/was General Jorge Rafael Videla of Argentina, who I met in the late 1970s when the death squad war was at its height, and his fellow citizens were disappearing off the street all the time. And he was, in some ways, extremely banal. I describe him as looking like a human toothbrush. He was a sort of starch, lean officer with a silly mustache, and a very stupid look to him, but a very fanatical glint as well. And, if I'd tell you why he's now under house arrest in Argentina, you might get a sense of the horror I felt as I was asking him questions about all this. He's in prison in Argentina for selling the children of the rape victims among the private prisoners, who he kept in a personal jail. 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The most pregnant moment of that commitment was one that I managed to miss at the time: I passed an afternoon with Zdenek Mlynar, exiled former secretary of the Czech Communist Party, who in the bleak early 1950s in Moscow had formed a friendship with a young Russian militant with an evident sense of irony named Mikhail Sergeyevitch Gorbachev. In 1988 I was arrested in Prague for attending a meeting of one of Vaclav Havel's 'Charter 77' committees. That outwardly exciting experience was interesting precisely because of its almost Zen-like tedium. I had gone to Prague determined to be the first visiting writer not to make use of the name Franz Kafka, but the numbing bureaucracy got the better of me. When I asked why I was being detained, I was told that I had no need to know the reason! Totalitarianism is itself a cliché (as well as a tundra of pulverizing boredom) and it forced the cliché upon me in turn. I did have to mention Kafka in my eventual story. The regime fell not very much later, as I had slightly foreseen in that same piece that it would. (I had happened to notice that the young Czechs arrested with us were not at all frightened by the police, as their older mentors had been and still were, and also that the police themselves were almost fatigued by their job. This was totalitarianism practically yawning itself to death.) A couple of years after that I was overcome to be invited to an official reception in Prague, to thank those who had been consistent friends through the stultifying years of what 'The Party' had so perfectly termed 'normalization.' As with my tiny moment with Nelson Mandela, a whole historic stretch of nothingness and depression, combined with the long and deep insult of having to be pushed around by boring and mediocre people, could be at least partially canceled and annealed by one flash of humor and charm and generosity.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/very-often-the-test-of-one-s-allegiance-to-a-cause-or-to-a-people-is/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/12e/christopher-hitchens-117_1950s_very-often-the-test-of-one-s-allegiance_369954.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/12e/christopher-hitchens-117_1950s_very-often-the-test-of-one-s-allegiance_369954.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/12e/christopher-hitchens-117_1950s_very-often-the-test-of-one-s-allegiance_369954.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Very often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the…” — Christopher Hitchens", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“I can remember when I was a bit of an ETA fan myself. 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Everyone I knew in Spain made a little holiday in their hearts when the gruesome admiral went sky-high.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Christopher Hitchens" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/christopher-hitchens/i-can-remember-when-i-was-a-bit-of-an-eta-fan-myself-it-was-in-1973/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/28b/christopher-hitchens-117_1970s_i-can-remember-when-i-was-a-bit-of-an-et_2488094.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/28b/christopher-hitchens-117_1970s_i-can-remember-when-i-was-a-bit-of-an-et_2488094.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/28b/christopher-hitchens-117_1970s_i-can-remember-when-i-was-a-bit-of-an-et_2488094.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“I can remember when I was a bit of an ETA fan myself. 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