Check out the best Christopher Hitchens quotes that challenge beliefs, provoke thought, and celebrate fearless intellectual expression.

Christopher Hitchens was a British-American author, journalist, and public intellectual known for his razor-sharp wit, powerful rhetoric, and unwavering commitment to truth and reason.

Born in 1949, Hitchens became a leading voice in political and cultural commentary, writing extensively on politics, religion, literature, culture, and global affairs.

His bold critiques of authoritarianism and organized religion made him both an influential and a controversial figure.

Hitchens authored several bestselling books, including God Is Not Great, Hitch-22, Mortality, and Letters to a Young Contrarian, earning praise for his intellectual arguments and eloquent prose.

Through his essays, speeches, and engaging debates, Hitchens fearlessly challenged conventional thinking while defending freedom of speech, reason, and individual rights.

His legacy continues to inspire millions to think critically, question authority, and never shy away from uncomfortable truths.

Here are the most famous Christopher Hitchens quotes to stir your mind and spark meaningful conversation.

Top 10 Christopher Hitchens Quotes

1. “It’s called faith because it’s not knowledge.” — Christopher Hitchens

   

   
   

2. “Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence.” — Christopher Hitchens

   

3. “There can be no progress without head-on confrontation.” — Christopher Hitchens

   

4. “Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.” — Christopher Hitchens

   

5. “Faith is the surrender of the mind; it’s the surrender of reason.” — Christopher Hitchens

   

6. “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” — Christopher Hitchens

   

7. “Time spent arguing with the faithful is, oddly enough, almost never wasted.” — Christopher Hitchens

   

8. “Morality comes from humanism and is stolen by religion for its own purposes.” — Christopher Hitchens

   

9. “The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.” — Christopher Hitchens

   

10. “Religion is not the belief there is a God. Religion is the belief God tells you what to do.” — Christopher Hitchens

Famous Quotes By Christopher Hitchens

1. “The one unforgivable sin is to be boring.” — Christopher Hitchens
2. “Don’t take refuge in the false security of consensus.” — Christopher Hitchens
3. “Solidarity is an attitude of resistance, I suppose, or it should be.” — Christopher Hitchens
4. “The beauty of science hugely outranks the charms of superstition.” — Christopher Hitchens
5. “Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.” ― Christopher Hitchens
6. “Islamophobia: a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.” — Christopher Hitchens
7. “There are all kinds of stupid people that annoy me but what annoys me most is a lazy argument.” — Christopher Hitchens
8. “A gentleman is never rude except on purpose – I can honestly be nasty sober, believe you me.” — Christopher Hitchens
9. “I’ve had some dark nights of the soul, of course, but giving in to depression would be a sellout, a defeat.” — Christopher Hitchens
10. “Take the risk of thinking for yourself – far more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.” — Christopher Hitchens
11. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him will believe in anything.” — Christopher Hitchens
12. “Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.” — Christopher Hitchens
13. “Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.” — Christopher Hitchens
14. “The man who prays is the one who thinks that God has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct God how to put them right.” — Christopher Hitchens
15. “I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.” — Christopher Hitchens

Best Christopher Hitchens Quotes On Religion & Christianity

1. “Religion has been an enormous multiplier of tribal suspicion and hatred.” — Christopher Hitchens
2. “Religion gets its morality from us. We don’t get our morality from religion.” — Christopher Hitchens
3. “I think religion should be treated with ridicule, hatred, and contempt, and I claim that right.” — Christopher Hitchens
4. “The trade-off between freedom and security, so often proposed so seductively, very often leads to the loss of both.” — Christopher Hitchens
5. “I appear as a skeptic, who believes that doubt is the great engine, the great fuel of all inquiry, all discovery and all innovation.” — Christopher Hitchens
6. “Religion ends and philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins and astrology ends, and astronomy begins.” — Christopher Hitchens
7. “If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.” — Christopher Hitchens
8. “Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects in a cruel experiment whereby we are created sick and commanded to be well.” — Christopher Hitchens
9. “Name a moral statement or action, uttered or performed by a religious person that could not have been uttered or performed by an unbeliever.” — Christopher Hitchens
10. “I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.” — Christopher Hitchens
11. “In the ordinary moral universe, the good will do the best they can, the worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.” — Christopher Hitchens
12. “Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.” — Christopher Hitchens
13. “Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” — Christopher Hitchens
14. “My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can’t prove it, but you can’t disprove it either.” — Christopher Hitchens
15. “Religion is part of the human make-up. It’s also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.” — Christopher Hitchens

Conclusion

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