Christopher Hitchens

"It is perfectly obvious that the religion of the future will be some sort of higher thought and spiritual experience."

"One should always be suspicious of anyone who claims to have the complete truth."

"The pleasure of reading is not in arriving at the conclusion but in the journey."

"Power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely."

"The most oppressive societies are those that claim to be the most free."

"Never allow yourself to be made a victim."

"The worst excuse for anything is that 'that's how we've always done it.'"

"Humility is not a virtue when it comes to defending your principles."

"Life is a temporary condition; make use of it."

"The search for truth requires the willingness to be wrong."

"The state that most perfectly represents the people is the one least needed."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge—it is the mind's weapon against the unknown."

"The burden of proof is not on the accused to prove innocence but on the accuser to prove guilt."

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks."

"One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to preserve one's liberty, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself."

"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

"The person who is certain, and who never doubts, is often the least reliable guide."

"Perhaps the greatest achievement of Western civilization has been the decoupling of morality from superstition."

"Totalitarianism in its full fury is comparatively recent, and so is democracy."

"The Bible may be inerrant, but it was certainly not meant to be read literally on every page."

"One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody, at all, had any idea what was going on."

"Slippery slope arguments are often dismissed as logical fallacies, but they can be quite persuasive when the incline is slippery enough."

"The burden of proof is always on the claimant, never on the skeptic."

"I do not believe that any discovery of fact, however spectacular, will ever persuade me to bow down before an imaginary power."

"A cynical person is simply a disappointed idealist."

"The real religious question is whether an omniscient being can make a rock so heavy he cannot lift it."

"One must decide whether the primary enemy of the open society is religious fundamentalism or political totalitarianism."

"The person who relies on the approval of others is like a ship without a compass."

"Every year more people leave Islam than join it, and more people leave Christianity than join it."