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How Do I Know That I Know This, Except That I've Always Been Taught This And Never Heard Anything Else? [...] How Sure Am I Of My Own Views? Don't Take Refuge In The False Security Of Consensus, And The Feeling That Whatever You Think You're Bound To Be Okay, Because You're In The Safely Moral Majority.
-Christopher Hitchens
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How Do I Know

Christopher Hitchens
How Do I Know That I Know This, Except That I've Always Been Taught This And Never Heard Anything Else? [...] How Sure Am I Of My Own Views? Don't Take Refuge In The False Security Of Consensus, And The Feeling That Whatever You Think You're Bound To Be Okay, Because You're In The Safely Moral Majority.
Views: 7
Topic
Thinking
Views
Feelings
More From Christopher Hitchens
Forget It. Never Explain; Never Apologize. You Can Either Write Posthumously Or You Can't.
Writing
Apologizing
Forget
I Think Religion Should Be Treated With Ridicule, Hatred And Contempt, And I Claim That Right.
Thinking
Hatred
Claims
The Easiest Way To Establish A Dictatorship Is To Claim You Are God's Representative On Earth.
Religion
Earth
Way
The Whole Reason For The Success Of Dr. King's Civil-rights Movement Was That It Was Not A Movement For Itself. The Civil-rights Movement Understood Very Clearly, And Stated Very Beautifully, That It Was A Question Of Humanism, Not A Sectarian Movement At All.
Kings
Rights
Drs
Evolution Is, As Well As Smarter Than We Are, Infinitely More Callous And Cruel, And Also Capricious.
Evolution
Capricious
Callous
No, Nothing Is Sacred. And Even If There Were To Be Something Called Sacred, We Mere Primates Wouldn't Be Able To Decide Which Book Or Which Idol Or Which City Was The Truly Holy One. Thus, The Only Thing That Should Be Upheld At All Costs And Without Qualification Is The Right Of Free Expression, Because If That Goes, Then So Do All Other Claims Of Right As Well.
Book
Expression
Idols
Human Society Is Inconceivable Unless Words Are To Some Extent Bonds.
Humans
Human Society
Margaret Thatcher Has Shown That There Is Power And Dignity To Be Won By Defying The Status Quo And The Majority Rather Than By Adapting To Them. If The British Left, Which She Froze Into Immobility Like Medusa, Could Bring Itself To Learn From This, Then We Might Not Have To Look Upon Her Like Again.
Power
Majority
Medusa
A Sure Sign Of Ineptitude And Malice Is Manifested When One's Attacker Is Willing To Cover Himself With Mud In Order To Try And Make Some Of It Adhere To His Target.
Order
Trying
Target
Most Of The Utopian Community Ideas Actually Are Religious. They're Based More On The Idea Of The Monastery Than The Commune.
Religious
Ideas
Community
Many Religions Now Come Before Us With Ingratiating Smirks And Outspread Hands, Like An Unctuous Merchant In A Bazaar. They Offer Consolation And Solidarity And Uplift, Competing As They Do In A Marketplace. But We Have A Right To Remember How Barbarically They Behaved When They Were Strong And Were Making An Offer That People Could Not Refuse.
Uplifting
Strong
Atheist
Terrorism Is The Tactic Of Demanding The Impossible, And Demanding It At Gunpoint.
Tactics
Impossible
Terrorism
We Are Unlikely To Cease Making Gods Or Inventing Ceremonies To Please Them For As Long As We Are Afraid Of Death, Or Of The Dark, And For As Long As We ­persist In Self-­centeredness. That Could Be A Lengthy Stretch Of Time.
Dark
Self
Long
To Be Against Rationalization Is Not The Same As To Be Opposed To Reasoning.
Reasoning
Benito Mussolini Had Barely Seized Power In Italy Before The Vatican Made An Official Treaty With Him, Known As The Lateran Pact Of 1929. Under The Terms Of This Deal, Catholicism Became The Only Recognized Religion In Italy, With Monopoly Powers Over Matters Such As Birth, Marriage, Death, And Education, And In Return Urged Its Followers To Vote For Mussolini's Party. Pope Pius Xi Described Ii Duce (“the Leader”) As “a Man Sent By Providence.”
Party
Men
Europe
Virtue And Merit Can Become Their Opposites If They Are Exacted Or Compelled.
Opposites
Merit
Virtue
Well, To The People Who Pray For Me To Not Only Have An Agonising Death, But Then Be Reborn To Have An Agonising And Horrible Eternal Life Of Torture, I Say, 'well, Good On You. See You There.'
People
Praying
Torture
Your Ideal Authors Ought To Pull You From The Foundering Of Your Previous Existence, Not Smilingly Guide You Into A Friendly And Peaceable Harbor.
Friendly
Guides
Harbors
Where Would You Like To Live? In A State Of Conflict Or A Conflicted State?
Conflict
States
Solidarity Is An Attitude Of Resistance, I Suppose, Or It Should Be.
Attitude
Resistance
Should
I Have More Than Once In My Time Woken Up Feeling Like Death.
Feelings
My Time
Those Who Are Determined To Be 'offended' Will Discover A Provocation Somewhere. We Cannot Possibly Adjust Enough To Please The Fanatics, And It Is Degrading To Make The Attempt.
Determined
Enough
Please
As The Cleansing Ocean Closes Over Bin Laden's Carcass, May The Earth Lie Lightly On The Countless Graves Of Those He Sentenced Without Compunction To Be Burned Alive Or Dismembered In The Street.
Lying
Ocean
Alive
If You Think All This Is Going On, All These Gigantic Fields Of Gravity And Light With You In Mind, Then You Really Do Have A Self-centredness Problem.
Thinking
Light
Self
I Think That There Is No Supernatural Dimension. The Natural World Is Quite Wonderful Enough. The More We Know About It, The Much More Wonderful It Is Than Any Supernatural Proposition.
Thinking
Dimensions
World
I Think I Write In A Fairly Self-confident Manner.
Writing
Thinking
Self
The Disquieting Thing About Newscaster-babble Or Editorial-speak Is Its Ready Availability As A Serf Idiom, A Vernacular Of Deference. "mr. Secretary, Are We Any Nearer To Bringing About A Dialogue In This Process ?
Availability
Speak
Process
Jesus, It Is True, Shows No Personal Interest In Gain, But He Does Speak Of Treasure In Heaven And Even Of Mansions As An Inducement To Follow Him. Is It Not Further True That All Religions Down The Ages Have Shown A Keen Interest In The Amassment Of Material Goods In The Real World?
Jesus
Real
Heaven
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.
Stupid
Bored
Brain
There Is A Reason For The Affected Profession Of " Anarchist Sympathies" Among Tories And Grandees, And Of " Libertarian Principles" By Hobbesian Yahoos Of The Right. Among The Former, One Sees The Upholding Of The View That A Gentleman's Business And Property Are His Own, And None Of The Government's. Among The Latter, A Distaste For Democracy, For Taxation, And For The Need To Consult Others About The Planet.
Government
Views
Gentleman
Here’s Someone Who Says There’s No Such Thing, It’s All Intelligent Design. How Sure Am I Of My Own Views? Don’t Take Refuge In The False Security Of Consensus, And The Feeling That Whatever You Think You’re Bound To Be Okay, Because You’re In The Safely Moral Majority.
Refuge
Consensus
Security
I'd Always Somehow Felt Slightly As If I'd Been Born In The Wrong Country.
Country
Born
Felt
I Burned The Candle At Both Ends And It Often Gave A Lovely Light.
Light
Lovely
Ends
The One Unforgivable Sin Is To Be Boring.
Unforgivable Sin
Sin
Boring
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.
People
Religion
Wicked
There Is No Such Thing As Closure, And It Wouldn't Be Worth Having If It Were Available, Because All It Would Mean Is That Something That Was Quite An Important Part Of You Had Gone Numb.
Mean
Important
Gone
The Thing About Religion Is That It's The First And The Worst. The Worst Because It's The First.
Firsts
Worst
Religion Has Run Out Of Justifications. Thanks To The Telescope And The Microscope, It No Longer Offers An Explanation Of Anything Important. Where Once It Used To Able, By Its Total Command Of A Worldview, To Prevent The Emergence Of Rivals, It Can Now Only Impede And Retard-or Try To Turn Back-the Measureable Advances That We Have Made.
Running
Science
Important
The Moment Of Near Despair Is Quite Often The Moment That Precedes Courage.
Despair
Moments
No Society Has Gone The Way Of Gulags Or Concentration Camps By Following The Path Of Spinoza And Einstein And Jefferson And Thomas Paine
Gone
Way
Gulags
An Old Joke Has An Oxford Professor Meeting An American Former Graduate Student And Asking Him What He's Working On These Days. 'my Thesis Is On The Survival Of The Class System In The United States.' 'oh Really, That's Interesting: One Didn't Think There Was A Class System In The United States.' 'nobody Does. That's How It Survives.
Thinking
Class
Oxford
In Order To Terminate A Pregnancy, You Have To Still A Heartbeat, Switch Off A Developing Brain.
Pregnancy
Order
Abortion
Flaubert Was Right When He Said That Our Use Of Language Is Like A Cracked Kettle On Which We Bang Out Tunes For Bears To Dance To, While All The Time We Need To Move The Very Stars To Pity.
Stars
Moving
Bangs
Ronald Reagan Used To Alarm Other Constituencies By Speaking Freely About The End Times Foreshadowed In The Bible.
Talking
Alarms
Used
I Have Nowhere Claimed Nor Even Implied That Unbelief Is A Guarantee Of Good Conduct Or Even An Indicator Of It.
Guarantees
Indicators
Implied
How Dismal It Is To See Present Day Americans Yearning For The Very Orthodoxy That Their Country Was Founded To Escape.
Country
Atheist
Atheism
There's No Hell Mentioned In The Old Testament. The Punishment Of The Dead Is Not Specified There. It's Only With Gentle Jesus, Meek And Mild, That The Idea Of Eternal Torture For Minor Transgressions Is Introduced.
Jesus
Punishment
Ideas
Religion Looks Forward To The Destruction Of The World.... Perhaps Half Aware That Its Unsupported Arguments Are Not Entirely Persuasive, And Perhaps Uneasy About Its Own Greedy Accumulation Of Temporal Power And Wealth, Religion Has Never Ceased To Proclaim The Apocalypse And The Day Of Judgment.
Looks
Half
World
You Know, You Can Make A Small Mistake In Language Or Etiquette In Britain, Or You Could When I Was Younger, And Really Be Made To Feel It, And It's The Flick Of A Lash, But It Would Sting, And Especially At School Where There's Not Much Privacy, And So On. You Could, Yes, Undoubtedly Be Made To Feel Crushed.
Mistake
School
Language
There Is Almost No Country In Africa Where It Is Not Essential To Know To Which Tribe, Or Which Subgroup Of Which Tribe, The President Belongs. From This Single Piece Of Information You Can Trace The Lines Of Patronage And Allegiance That Define The State.
Country
President
Essentials
I Have Decided To Take Whatever My Disease Can Throw At Me.
Disease
Decided
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'.
Battle
Friendship Love
Literature
The Struggle For A Free Intelligence Has Always Been A Struggle Between The Ironic And The Literal Mind.
Struggle
Ironic
Mind
My Chief Consolation In This Year Of Living Dyingly Has Been The Presence Of Friends.
Years
Chiefs
Consolation
I Say That Homosexuality Is Not Just A Form Of Sex, It's A Form Of Love, And It Deserves Our Respect For That Reason.
Sex
Lgbt
Gay Pride
I Became A Journalist Partly So That I Wouldn't Ever Have To Rely On The Press For My Information.
Information
Journalist
Rely
When Maimonides Says That The Messiah Will Come But That 'he May Tarry,' We See The Origin Of Every Jewish Shrug From Spinoza To Woody Allen.
May
Spinoza
Woody
It's No Fun To Appreciate To The Full The Truth Of The Materialist Proposition That I Don't Have A Body, I Am A Body.
Fun
Appreciate
Body
You Should Be Nicer To Him,' A Schoolmate Had Once Said To Me Of Some Awfully Ill-favored Boy. 'he Has No Friends.' This, I Realized With A Pang Of Pity That I Can Still Remember, Was Only True As Long As Everybody Agreed To It.
Bullying
Boys
Long
Those Of Us Who Are Most Genuinely Repelled By War And Violence Are Also Those Who Are Most Likely To Decide That Some Things, After All, Are Worth Fighting For.
War
Fighting
Violence
Well, I'll Put It This Way: You Can Certainly Say Belief In God Makes People Behave Worse. That Can Be Proved Beyond A Doubt.
People
Doubt
Way
I Have Been Called Arrogant Myself In My Time, And Hope To Earn The Title Again, But To Claim That I Am Privy To The Secrets Of The Universe And Its Creator - That's Beyond My Conceit.
Atheist
Pride
Secret
The Offer Of Certainty, The Offer Of Complete Security, The Offer Of An Impermeable Faith That Can’t Give Way, Is An Offer Of Something Not Worth Having. 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. I Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way.
Giving
Risk
Want
The Essence Of The Independent Mind Lies Not In What It Thinks, But In How It Thinks.
Lying
Independent
Thinking
I'm Not That Keen On The Idea Of Being Unconscious.
Ideas
Unconscious
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.
Way
Nihilist
Decent
Here Is The Point About Myself And My Co-thinkers. Our Belief Is Not A Belief. Our Principles Are Not A Faith. We Do Not Hold Our Convictions Dogmatically. We Believe With Certainty That An Ethical Life Can Be Lived Without Religion. And We Know For A Fact That The Corollary Holds True - That Religion Has Caused Innumerate People Not Just To Conduct Themselves No Better Than Others, But To Award Themselves Permission To Behave In Ways That Would Make A Brothel-keeper Or An Ethnic Cleanser Raise An Eyebrow.
Believe
Awards
Eyebrows
I Mean, What Would I Be Doing If I Couldn't Write? But That Fortunately Hasn't Proved To Be The Case And I Can Read Any Day. I Still Read A Lot, And I Can Write Any Day, But Much More Slowly And Fewer Words.
Mean
Writing
Cases
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 Ever Be Responsible For It.
Men
Drunk
Responsible
I Retain What's Interesting To Me, But I Don't Have A Lot Of Strategic Depth.
Interesting
Depth
Strategic
So Far, I Have Decided To Take Whatever My Disease Can Throw At Me, And To Stay Combative Even While Taking The Measure Of My Inevitable Decline. I Repeat, This Is No More Than What A Healthy Person Has To Do In Slower Motion.
Healthy
Disease
Decline
For Most Of My Life I Let Women Do The Driving And Was Happy To Let Them.
Driving
Religion Makes Intelligent People Say And Do Wacky Things, Believe And Affirm Crazy Things.
Crazy
Believe
Intelligent
And The Pleasures And Rewards Of The Intellect Are Inseparable From Angst, Uncertainty, Conflict And Even Despair.
Despair
Rewards
Conflict
Owners Of Dogs Will Have Noticed That, If You Provide Them With Food And Water And Shelter And Affection, They Will Think You Are God. Whereas Owners Of Cats Are Compelled To Realize That, If You Provide Them With Food And Water And Affection, They Draw The Conclusion That They Are God.
Inspirational
Dog
Cat
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.
Hands
Looks
Gone
I Have No Time To Waste On This Planet Being Told What To Do By Those Who Think That God Has Given Them Instructions.
Thinking
Waste
Planets
Happiness Is Fleeting And Life Is Brief, But We Know That, Nonetheless, Life Can Be Savored And That Happiness, Even Of The Ecstatic Kind, Is Available To Us.
Fleeting
Kind
Life Is
Islam In Its Origins Is Just As Shady And Approximate As Those From Which It Took Its Borrowings. It Makes Immense Claims For Itself, Invokes Prostrate Submission Or "surrender" As A Maxim To Its Adherents, And Demands Deference And Respect From Nonbelievers Into The Bargain. There Is Nothing-absolutely Nothing-in Its Teachings That Can Even Begin To Justify Such Arrogance And Presumption.
Teaching
Arrogance
Islam
The Role Of Dissident Is Not, And Should Not Be, A Claim Of Membership In A Communion Of Saints. In Other Words, The More Fallible The Mammal, The Truer The Example.
Democracy
Saint
Roles
The Trade-off Between Freedom And Security, So Often Proposed So Seductively, Very Often Leads To The Loss Of Both.
Loss
Trade
Eternal Vigilance
Today I Want To Puke When I Hear The Word 'radical' Applied So Slothfully And Stupidly To Islamist Murderers; The Most Plainly Reactionary People In The World.
People
World
Want
In One Way, I Suppose, I Have Been 'in Denial' For Some Time, Knowingly Burning The Candle At Both Ends And Finding That It Often Gives A Lovely Light.
Light
Giving
Lovely
I Was Taught Very Early On That The State Can Be, And Is, A Liar And A Murderer.
Liars
Taught
States
Though It Is True We Are The Highest And Smartest Animals, Ospreys Have Eyes We Have Calculated To Be Sixty Times More Powerful And Sophisticated Than Our Own And That Blindness, Often Caused By Microscopic Parasites That Are Themselves Miracles Of Ingenuity, Is One Of The Oldest And Most Tragic Disorders Known To Man. And Why Award The Superior Eye (or In The Case Of Cat Or Bat, Also The Ear) To The Inferior Species.
Powerful
Cat
Eye
To The Dumb Question, 'why Me?' The Cosmos Barely Bothers To Return The Reply, 'why Not?'
Dumb
Cosmos
Why Not
Morality Comes From Humanism And Is Stolen By Religion For Its Own Purposes.
Purpose
Morality
Stolen
North Korea Is A Necrocracy, Or A Mauselocracy Or A Thanatocracy In Which The One [kim Il-sung] Is Diffused Into Being With The Other [kim Jong Il], And Where Both Of Them Are Said To Have Had Miraculous Births Attended By Miraculous Phenomena Such As, For Example, Birds Singing In Korean, When They Were Born.
Korea
Bird
Singing
I'm Not Resigned, But I'm Realistic Too. The Statistics In My Case Are Very Poor. Not Many People Come Through Esophageal Cancer And Live To Talk About It, Or Not For Long.
Cancer
Long
People
Ever Since I Discovered That My God Given Male Member Was Going To Give Me No Peace, I Decided To Give It No Rest In Return.
Giving
Males
Return
I'm A Single-issue Voter, To Get Straight To The Point. I'm Really Only Interested In The Candidate Who's Toughest And Least Apologetic When It Comes To The Confrontation With Islamic Jihadism.
Islamic
Issues
Voters
The Iraqi Baath Socialist Party Was Modelled In Large Part On Admiration For European National Socialist And Fascist Movements, Hoped To Emulate Them Especially In Their Nationalism Against The West. But Mutated By Saddam Hussein It Became Also One That Very, Very Much Admired, And Grew A Special Moustache In Admiration Of The Work Of Yosif Vissarionovitch Dzugashvili, The Great Georgian Known To Us Historically As Stalin. So You Had Him In Modern Iraq, A Regime In Our Own Time, That Was Openly, Directly Modelled Upon The Two Most Extreme Examples Of European Totalitarianism.
Party
Two
Iraq
A Gentleman Is Never Rude Except On Purpose - I Can Honestly Be Nasty Sober, Believe You Me.
Believe
Rude
Gentleman
There Are People Who Cannot Forget, As Neither Do I, The Lesson Of The Years Of The Indochina War. Which Was, First, That The State Is Capable Of Being A Murderer. A Mass Murderer, And A Conspirator And A Liar.
War
Liars
Years
The Concept Of Loneliness And Exile And Self-sufficiency Continually Bucks Me Up.
Loneliness
Self
Bucks
The Totalitarian, To Me, Is The Enemy - The One That's Absolute, The One That Wants Control Over The Inside Of Your Head, Not Just Your Actions And Your Taxes.
Enemy
Want
Action
No Possible Future Government In Kabul Can Be Worse Than The Taliban, And No Thinkable Future Government Would Allow The Level Of Al Qaeda Gangsterism To Recur. So The Outcome Is Proportionate And Congruent With International Principles Of Self-defense.
Government
Self
Principles
Of Course We Have Free Will Because We Have No Choice But To Have It.
Choices
Free Will
Courses
I Don't Want Them (religious Followers) Trying To Inflict Their Belief On Me.
Religious
Atheism
Trying
[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.
Careers
Culture
Citizens
Chomsky Proceeds On The Almost Unthinkably Subversive Assumption That The United States Should Be Judged By The Same Standards That It Preaches (often At Gunpoint) To Other Nations He Is Nearly The Only Person Now Writing Who Assumes A Single Standard Of International Morality Not For Rhetorical Effect, But As A Matter Of Habitual, Practically Instinctual Conviction.
Writing
United States
Matter
There's Been Some Research In Cognitive Science, I'm Told, That Discloses That There Have Always Been Perhaps 10 To 15 Percent Of People Who Are, As Pascal Puts It, So Made That They Cannot Believe. To Us, When People Talk About Faith, It's White Noise.
Believe
White
People
Religion Is Not Just Incongruent With Morality, But In Essential Ways Incompatible With It.
Essentials
Way
Morality
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.
Sick
Religion
Atheism
I'm A Member Of No Party. I Have No Ideology. I'm A Rationalist. I Do What I Can In The International Struggle Between Science And Reason And The Barbarism, Superstition And Stupidity That's All Around Us.
Party
Struggle
Stupidity
My Father Had Died, And Very Swiftly, Too, Of Cancer Of The Esophagus. He Was 79. I Am 61. In Whatever Kind Of A 'race' Life May Be, I Have Very Abruptly Become A Finalist.
Cancer
Father
Race
Gullibility And Credulity Are Considered Undesireable Qualities In Every Department Of Human Life - Except Religion ... Why Are We Praised By Godly Men For Surrendering Our 'godly Gift' Of Reason When We Cross Their Mental Thresholds?
Atheist
Godly
Men
The People Who Must Never Have Power Are The Humorless. To Impossible Certainties Of Rectitude They Ally Tedium And Uniformity
People
Allies
Impossible
Some People Say That Without God, People Would Give Themselves Permission To Do Anything. [yet] Only With God, Only With The View That God's On Your Side, Can People Give Themselves Permission To Do Things That Otherwise Would Be Called Satanic.
Views
Your Side
People
We Know That Our Life Is Essentially Tragic. I'm Absolutely Not For Handing Over That Very Important Department Of Our Psyche To Those Who Say, "why Didn't You Say So Before? God Has A Plan For You In Mind."
Mind
Important
God Has A Plan
The Secular State Is The Guarantee Of Religious Pluralism. This Apparent Paradox, Again, Is The Simplest And Most Elegant Of Political Truths.
Religious
Pluralism Is
Political
But You'll Notice, You Will Notice That Russia And China, Invariably At The United Nations, Move To Block American Action, To Repress Or Hem In Or Punish Other Kinds Of Outlaw. Who Stands Behind Mugabi At The United Nations? Russia And China Do. Who Tried Successfully To Prevent The United Nations From Speaking With One Voice On Its Most Signal Violation Of Its Resolutions, Iraq? Russia And China, Again. North Korea The Same. Burma The Same.
Block
Moving
Russia
Alcohol Makes Other People Less Tedious, And Food Less Bland, And Can Help Provide What The Greeks Called Entheos, Or The Slight Buzz Of Inspiration When Reading Or Writing
Inspiration
Reading
Writing
There Is A Division Within The Neo-conservative Movement, Which Is, By The Way, One Of The Tests Of Its Authenticity As A Tendency. I Would Say I Was A Supporter Of Paul Wolfowitz.
Division
Movement
Tests
The (catholic) Church, As Far As I Know, Has Not Endorsed Any War As Just Since It Supported General Franco's Invasion Of Spain To Destroy The Spanish Republic With A Muslim Mercenary Army In The Thirties, On The Side Of Hitler.
War
Army
Catholic
I Don't Think There's Any Need To Have Essays Advocating Selfishness Among Human Beings; I Don't Know What Your Impression Has Been, But Some Things Require No Further Reinforcement.
Thinking
Selfishness
Needs
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.
Coats
Way
Evening
It's Not At All Good When Your Cancer Is 'palpable' From The Outside. Especially When, As At This Stage, They Didn't Even Know Where The Primary Source Was. Carcinoma Works Cunningly From The Inside Out. Detection And Treatment Often Work More Slowly And Gropingly, From The Outside In.
Cancer
Treatment
Stage
The Press Is Still Investing Itself, It Seems To Me, In A Sort Of Cynicism. It Comes Out Better For Them If They Can Predict Hard Times, Bogging Down, Sniping, Attrition.
Hard Times
Sniping
Investing
Take The Risk Of Thinking For Yourself
Thinking
Risk
Greatest Atheist
Only The Force Of American Arms, Or The Extremely Credible Threat Of That Force, Can Bring A Fresh Face To Power.
Arms
Faces
Force
My Political Life Has Been Informed By The View That If There Was Any Truth To Religion There Wouldn't Really Be Any Need For Politics.
Views
Political
Needs
I Appear As A Skeptic, Who Believes That Doubt Is The Great Engine, The Great Fuel Of All Inquiry, All Discovery And All Innovation.
Believe
Discovery
Innovation
All The Time, I've Felt That Life Is A Wager And That I Probably Was Getting More Out Of Leading A Bohemian Existence As A Writer Than I Would Have If I Didn't.
Wagers
Life Is
Bohemian
A Good Day Is One Where I Can Not Just Read A Book, But Write A Review Of It. Maybe Today I'll Be Able To Do That. I Get For Some Reason Somewhat Stronger When The Sun Starts To Go Down. Dusk Is A Good Time For Me. I'm Crepuscular.
Book
Writing
Good Day
I Am A Person Of Faith: I Am A Person Who Will Believe Practically Anything On No Evidence At All.
Believe
Evidence
Persons
Philosophy Begins Where Religion Ends, Just As By Analogy Chemistry Begins Where Alchemy Runs Out, And Astronomy Takes The Place Of Astrology.
Running
Philosophy
Astrology
One Can't Indefinitely Do For Somebody What He Is Reluctant To Do For Himself.
Reluctant
I Have Tried For Much Of My Life To Write As If I Was Composing My Sentences To Be Read Posthumously.
Writing
Composing
Sentences
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.
Strong
Believe
Years
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.
Christian
Atheist
Humility
I Don't Regard Myself As Any Kind Of Conservative, Except Conceivably Neo, And That Word, Of Course, Is A Ridiculous Appellation, Because It's Used To Describe A Group That Was Ready To Make War On The Status Quo, Which Is Not A Conservative Position.
War
Groups
Ridiculous
The United States Has An Isolationist And Insular Culture, Combined With A Global And Interventionist Posture. This Highly Dangerous And Febrile Mixture, Which Greatly Facilitates The Task Of The Fear-mongers And Chauvinists, Needs A Very Exact And Nuanced Diagnosis. I Don't Think That Analogies From The Totalitarian Model, However Suggestive, Are Sufficient.
Thinking
United States
Tasks
I Could Not Do What I Do, And Teach A Class, And Never Miss A Deadline, Never Be Late For Anything If I Was A Lush, Ok? I Would Really Love To Read A Piece That Said, 'he Is Not A Lush.' That Would Be Fabulous, It Would Be A First, I Could Show It To People And Say, 'look!'
Class
People
Missing
If I Convert It's Because It's Better That A Believer Dies Than That An Atheist Does.
Atheist
Atheism
Doe
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.
Jesus
Teaching
Thinking
Not Since North Korean Media Declared Kim Jong-il To Be The Reincarnation Of Kim Il Sung Has There Been Such A Blatant Attempt To Create A Necrocracy, Or Perhaps Mausolocracy, In Which A Living Claimant Assumes The Fleshly Mantle Of The Departed.
Media
Departed
Kim Il Sung
Endless Praise And Adoration, Limitless Abnegation And Abjection Of Self; A Celestial North Korea.
Self
Korea
Abjection
As Well As Being A Vulgar Producer Of Her Own Spectacle, And An Embarrassment To Her Family, Cindy Sheehan Is At Best A Shifty Fantasist.
Embarrassment
Producers
Vulgar
The Quality You Most Admire In A Woman? Courage Moral And Physical: "anima"-the Ability To Visualize The Mind And Need Of A Man. Also A Sense Of The Absurd.
Men
Empathy
Mind
It Especially Annoys Me When Racists Are Accused Of 'discrimination.' The Ability To Discriminate Is A Precious Faculty; By Judging All Members On One 'race' To Be The Same, The Racist Precisely Shows Himself Incapable Of Discrimination.
Race
Judging
Racist
The Rich World Likes And Wishes To Believe That Someone, Somewhere, Is Doing Something For The Third World. For This Reason, It Does Not Inquire Too Closely Into The Motives Or Practices Of Anyone Who Fulfills, However Vicariously, This Mandate.
Believe
Practice
Wish
Thus, Though I Dislike To Differ With Such A Great Man, Voltaire Was Simply Ludicrous When He Said That If God Did Not Exist It Would Be Necessary To Invent Him. The Human Invention Of God Is The Problem To Begin With.
Atheist
Men
Atheism
Nothing Optional -- From Homosexuality To Adultery -- Is Ever Made Punishable Unless Those Who Do The Prohibiting (and Exact The Fierce Punishment) Have A Repressed Desire To Participate.
Punishment
Desire
Fierce
I Try To Deny Myself Any Illusions Or Delusions, And I Think That This Perhaps Entitles Me To Try And Deny The Same To Others, At Least As Long As They Refuse To Keep Their Fantasies To Themselves.
Atheist
Thinking
Long
I Am Absolutely Convinced That Religion Is The Main Source Of Hatred In This World.
Hatred
Religion
Atheism
Billy Graham Is A Boring, Racist Charlatan.
Religion
Racist
Boring
A Celebrity Is Well Known For Being Well Known. I'm Relatively Well Known - But For What I've Written And Said, Or So I Fondly Imagine.
Imagine
Well Known
Said
There Are Days When I Miss My Old Convictions As If They Were An Amputated Limb. But In General I Feel Better, And No Less Radical, And You Will Feel Better Too, I Guarantee, Once You Leave Hold Of The Doctrinaire And Allow Your Chainless Mind To Do Its Own Thinking.
Atheist
Feel Better
Thinking
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 All Your Life. Make Your Last Days The Best Ones. People Might Suppose This Was In Poor Taste.
People
Atheism
Groups
I Don't Say Things Like "the Grace Of God." All That's White Noise To Me, Not Because I'm An Intellectual. For Many People, It's Gibberish. Likewise, The Idea That The Koran Was Dictated By An Archaic Illiterate Is A Fantasy.
Ideas
White
People
I Have Not Been Able To Discover Whether There Exists A Precise French Equivalent For The Common Anglo-american Expression 'killing Time.' It's A Very Crass And Breezy Expression, When You Ponder It For A Moment, Considering That Time, After All, Is Killing Us.
Expression
Able
Common
I Suppose That One Reason I Have Always Detested Religion Is Its Sly Tendency To Insinuate The Idea That The Universe Is Designed With 'you' In Mind Or, Even Worse, That There Is A Divine Plan Into Which One Fits Whether One Knows It Or Not. This Kind Of Modesty Is Too Arrogant For Me.
Atheist
Ideas
Mind
Rosa Luxemburg Was - Still Is For Me - A Great Personal And Intellectual Heroine. Her Analysis Of Leninism And Capitalism And Social Democracy Are All Worth Reading. I Wouldn't Consider Anyone Truly Politically Literate If They Hadn't Given Her Work At Least Some Study.
Reading
Intellectual
Democracy
I'm Here As A Product Of Process Of Evolution, Which Doesn't Make Very Many Exceptions. And Which Rates Life Relatively Cheaply.
Evolution
Process
Rate
I'm Quite Convinced In My Own Mind That Those Who Were Arguing That [the Need To Intervene In Iraq] Was A More Immediate One Than Some Believed - Were I'm Sure Convinced That They Were Right On Fact, I Don't Think They Were Making It Up. So As To Lying, I Don't Think It Has Been Established That Any Lies Were Told.
Lying
Thinking
Iraq
It Must Be Obvious To Anyone Who Can Think At All That The Charges Against The Hussein Regime Are, As Concerns Arsenals Of Genocidal Weaponry, True.
Thinking
Hussein
Regimes
I Have Been Taunting The Reaper Into Taking A Free Scythe In My Direction And Have Now Succumbed To Something So Predictable And Banal That It Bores Even Me.
Scythes
Reaper
Bores
Religion Has Been An Enormous Multiplier Of Tribal Suspicion And Hatred.
Hatred
Enormous
Suspicion
Take The Risk Of Thinking For Yourself. Much More Happiness, Truth, Beauty And Wisdom Will Come To You That Way.
Thinking
Texas
Risk
I Had Become Too Accustomed To The Pseudo-left New Style, Whereby If Your Opponent Thought He Had Identified Your Lowest Possible Motive, He Was Quite Certain That He Had Isolated The Only Real One. This Vulgar Method, Which Is Now The Norm And The Standard In Much Non-left Journalism As Well, Is Designed To Have The Effect Of Making Any Noisy Moron Into A Master Analyst.
Real
Style
Opponents
I Think The Materialist Conception Of History Is Valid.
Thinking
Conception
No Moral Person Would Do Such A Thing Unless They Thought It Was Divinely Warranted.
Religion
Moral
Persons
Our Belief Is Not A Belief. Our Principles Are Not A Faith. We Do Not Rely Soley Upon Science And Reason, Because These Are Necessary Rather Than Sufficient Factors, But We Distrust Anything That Contradicts Science Or Outrages Reason. We May Differ On Many Things, But What We Respect Is Free Inquiry, Openmindedness, And The Pursuit Of Ideas For Their Own Sake.
Atheist
Science
Ideas
The Museums Of Medieval Europe, From Holland To Tuscany, Are Crammed With Instruments And Devices Upon Which The Holy Men Labored Devoutly, In Order To See How Long They Could Keep Someone Alive While Being Roasted. It Is Not Needful To Go Into Further Details, But There Were Also Religious Books Of Instruction In This Art, And Guides For The Detection Of Heresy By Pain.
Religious
Art
Pain
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.
Views
Lunatic Asylums
Planets
Terrorism Works Better As A Tactic For Dictatorships, Or For Would-be Dictators, Than For Revolutionaries .
Would Be
Tactics
Revolutionary
Nothing Could Make Me Forget What The Reagan Years Had Actually Been Like.
Years
Forget
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 Aren't Even Young And Beautiful Now.
Beautiful
Thinking
Forever
The Transformation Of Part Of The Northern Part Of This Continent Into "america" Inaugurated A Nearly Boundless Epoch Of Opportunity And Innovation, And Thus Deserves To Be Celebrated With Great Vim And Gusto, With Or Without The Participation Of Those Who Wish They Had Never Been Born.
Opportunity
America
Innovation
Unless A Reincarnationist Is Willing To Say There Was A 'first Generation' Of Souls Created With The First Humans, He Is Exposed To Absurdity By The Recency Of Human Life On The Planet.
Soul
Generations
Firsts
Since I Speak And Write About This A Good Deal, I Am Often Asked At Public Meetings, In What Sometimes Seems To Me A Rather Prurient Way, Whether I Myself Or My Family Have 'ever Been Threatened' By Jihadists. My Answer Is That Yes, I Have, And So Has Everyone Else In The Audience, If They Have Paid Enough Attention To The Relevant Bin-ladenist Broadcasts To Notice The Fact.
Writing
Facts
Attention
It's The Professional Deformation Of Many Writers, And Has Ruined Not A Few. (i Remember Kingsley Amis, Himself No Slouch, Saying That He Could Tell On What Page Of The Novel Paul Scott Had Reached For The Bottle And Thrown Caution To The Winds.)
Writing
Wind
Bottles
There Are All Kinds Of Stupid People That Annoy Me But What Annoys Me Most Is A Lazy Argument.
Stupid
People
Lazy
Avoid Stock Expressions (like The Plague, As William Safire Used To Say) And Repetitions. 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. If Something Is Worth Hearing Or Listening To, It's Very Probably Worth Reading. So, This Above All: Find Your Own Voice.
Reading
Grandmother
Boys
As I've Said Before, You Can Be An Atheist And Anything You Like.
Atheist
Said
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.
Religion
Logic
Forgotten
Perhaps The Values Of Socialists Can Only Be Realized By Socialists In A Nonsocialist Society.
Values
Evolution Has Meant That Our Prefrontal Lobes Are Too Small, Our Adrenal Glands Are Too Big, And Our Reproductive Organs Apparently Designed By Committee; A Recipe Which, Alone Or In Combination, Is Very Certain To Lead To Some Unhappiness And Disorder.
Adrenal Glands
Recipes
Evolution
What Do You Most Value In Your Friends? Their Continued Existence.
Inspiring
Friends
Existence
We Inherited These Principles And These Freedoms And We Here Highly Resolve That We Shall Pass Them On, As We Will Pass On An Undivided Republic Purged Of Racism And Slavery, To Our Descendants. The Popgun Discharges Of A Few Pathetic Sectarians And Crackpot Revisionists Are Negligible, And Will Be Drowned By The Mounting Chorus That Demands: 'mr Jefferson! Build Up That Wall'.
Atheist
Wall
Racism
Anyone Who Can Look Me In The Eye And Say They Prefer The Story Of Moses Or Jesus Or Mohammed To The Life Of Socrates Is Intellectually Defective.
Jesus
Eye
Looks
Totalitarian Is A Cliché, Dictatorship Is Based On Clichéd Thinking, On Very Tried And Tested Uniform Stuff. They Don't Mind That They're Boring, They Don't Mind That They're Obvious, Their Point Is Made.
Thinking
Mind
Stuff
What Better Way For A Ruling Class To Claim And Hold Power Than To Pose As The Defenders Of The Nation.
Class
Way
Claims
A Point, Like A Joke, Is A Terrible Thing To Miss.
Missing
Terrible
Terrible Things
As Is So Often The Case With Pieces That Appear In The 'onion,' I Honestly Could Not Decide Whether This Was A Clever Hoax Or Not - The Arguments Were Almost Exactly As Stupid As The Real Thing.
Clever
Real
Stupid
When I Abandoned The Smoking Habit Of More Than Three Decades I Was Given A Supposedly Helpful Pill Called Wellbutrin. But As Soon As I Discovered That This Was The Brand Name For An Antidepressant, I Tossed The Bottle Away. There May Be Successful Methods For Overcoming The Blues But For Me They Cannot Include A Capsule That Says: 'fool Yourself Into Happiness, While Pretending Not To Do So.' I Should Actually Want My Mind To Be Strong Enough To Circumvent Such A Trick.
Strong
Successful
Names
Bertrand Russell Used To Employ The Method Of "evidence Against Interest"; In Other Words Of Deciding That A Critique Of Capital Punishment, Say, Carried More Weight If It Came From A Prison Governor. (my Friend John O'sullivan Puts It Like This: If The Pope Says He Believes In God, He's Only Doing His Job; If He Says He Doesn't Believe In God, He May Be On To Something.)
Jobs
Believe
Punishment
We Owe A Huge Debt To Galileo For Emancipating Us All From The Stupid Belief In An Earth-centered Or Man-centered (let Alone God-centered) System. He Quite Literally Taught Us Our Place And Allowed Us To Go On To Make Extraordinary Advances In Knowledge.
Atheist
Stupid
Men
It's Called Faith Because It's Not Knowledge.
Alcohol Makes Other People Less Tedious, And Food Less Bland, And Can Help Provide What The Greeks Called Entheos, Or The Slight Buzz Of Inspiration When Reading Or Writing Visiting Today's Iran, I Was Delighted To Find That Citizens Made A Point Of Defying The Clerical Ban On Booze, Keeping It In Their Homes For Visitors Even If They Didn't Particularly Take To It Themselves, And Bootlegging It With Great Brio And Ingenuity. These Small Revolutions Affirm The Human.
Inspiration
Reading
Home
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.
Philosophy
Believe
Healing
I'm Very Happy By Myself - I'm Lucky In That Way - If I've Got Enough To Read And Something To Write About And A Bit Of Alcohol For Me To Add An Edge, Not To Dull It.
Writing
Alcohol
Lucky
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.
Winning
Forever
Battle
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.
Country
Atheist
Law
Ruthless And Arrogant Though Power Can Appear, It Is Only Ever Held By Mere Mammals Who Excrete And Yearn, And Who Suffer From Insomnia And Insecurity. These Mammals Are Also Necessarily Vain In The ­extreme, And Often Wish To Be Liked Almost As Much As They Desire To Be Feared.
Power
Insomnia
Insecurity
The Governor Of Texas, Who, When Asked If The Bible Should Also Be Taught In Spanish, Replied That 'if English Was Good Enough For Jesus, Then It's Good Enough For Me.
Jesus
Texas
Taught
Religion Is Man-made. Even The Men Who Made It Cannot Agree On What Their Prophets Or Redeemers Or Gurus Actually Said Or Did.
Men
He Man
Guru
The Russians Are Going To Be Expansionist Whether We [usa] Provoke Them To It Or Not. Russians Keep Saying That We're Trying To Encircle Them. In What Sense Does The Independence Of Kosovo, A Land-locked Province, Former Yugoslavia, With No Common Border With Russia, Threaten Russia With Encirclement? This Is Insulting. In What Sense Does The Independence Of Georgia Constitute An Encirclement? What We Are Facing, And We May As Well Give It Its Right Name, Is What I Called It Earlier, A Chauvinistic, Theocratic In Part, Xenophobic Russian Imperialism.
Land
Yugoslavia
Names
We Have Preachers And Savants Who Dilate Endlessly On The Sanctity Of Family And Childhood But Who Tolerate A System In Which A Casual Observer Can Correlate A Child's Social Origin With Its Physical Well-being.
Children
Childhood
Social
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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