The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It's a battle you can't hope to win - it's a battle that's going to go on forever. It's part of the human condition.
Interpretation
Opposing superstition is an ongoing struggle inherent to humanity.
Christopher Hitchens emphasizes the enduring challenge of confronting superstition, suggesting that it is a fundamental aspect of the human experience. Despite knowing that this battle may never be fully won, he advocates for the significance of the intellectual struggle against unfounded beliefs throughout history.
In practice
This quote can be used in a debate on the role of belief systems in modern society.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way — because it’s had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
It is ironic to think that man might determine his own future by something so seemingly trivial as the choice of an insect spray.
The media and the rest of popular culture weren't recording people's reactions to 9/11; they were forcing made-up reactions down people's throats.
We all have people who are literally one life shock away from going into a crisis. For many of us, we have a buffer in one way or another. We have a savings account, or we have credit that we can go to. The underserved don't have that luxury.
All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys.
Dreaming is a phenomenon of purely individual consciousness, and consequently impossible to thoroughly deconstruct by a community of researchers. But dreaming matters.
Fishing, Danny boy, is purely a state of mind. Some men, when they are fishing, are after fish. Me, I'm after things you could never set a barbed hook in.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.