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It's Amazing How Relaxing It Is Not To Claim You Know More Than You Do. I'm Surprised That Those Who Claim To Speak In The Name Of God Don't Take More Advantage Of This Relief.
-Christopher Hitchens
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It's Amazing How Relaxing

Christopher Hitchens
It's Amazing How Relaxing It Is Not To Claim You Know More Than You Do. I'm Surprised That Those Who Claim To Speak In The Name Of God Don't Take More Advantage Of This Relief.
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Names
Relief
Speak
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Reading
Writing
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Fear
Dying
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It's Called Faith Because It's Not Knowledge.
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Teaching
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Trying
Want
Newspapers
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Thinking
Hatred
Claims
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People
Praying
Torture
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Thinking
Selfishness
Needs
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Art
Dancing
Alcohol
It Is A Horrible Idea That There Is Somebody Who Owns Us, Who Makes Us, Who Supervises Us - Waking And Sleeping - Who Knows Our Thoughts, Who Can Convict Us Of Thought Crime, Thought Crime, Just For What We Think, Who Can Judge Us While We Sleep For Things That Might Occur To Us In Our Dreams, Who Can Create Us Sick, As Apparently We Are - And Then Order Us, On Pain Of Eternal Torture To Be Well Again. To Demand This, To Wish This To Be True Is To Wish To Live As An Abject Slave.
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Pain
Sleep
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Aunt
Doctors
If People I've Never Met Or Don't Know Say That What I've Written Or Done Or Said Means Anything To Them, Then I'm Happy To Take It At Face Value, For Once. It Cheers Me Up.
Cheer
Mean
People
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Goes On
Charity
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Determination
Integrity
Self
A Lot Of People, Because Of My Contempt For The False Consolations Of Religion, Think Of Me As A Symbolic Public Opponent Of That In Extremis. And Sometimes That Makes Me Feel A Bit Alarmed, To Be The Repository Of Other People's Hope.
Thinking
People
Opponents
People Know When They Are Being Lied To, They Know When Their Rulers Are Absurd, They Know They Do Not Love Their Chains.
People
Being Lied
Absurd
Everything Everyone Thinks They Know About [mother Teresa] Is False. It Must Be The Single Most Successful Emotional Con Job Of The Twentieth Century.
Mother
Jobs
Successful
I've Been Writing A Lot About A New Form Of Russian Imperialism. Actually, Russian Orthodox Imperialism. It's Very Little Remarked That The Cement, The Political, Ideological Cement Of The Russian Regime Now, Communism Having Collapsed And Imploded, Is Increasingly A Confessional One.
Writing
Political
Littles
Your Favorite Virtue? An Appreciation For Irony.
Appreciation
Irony
Virtue
The Most Educated Person In The World Now Has To Admit-- I Shall Not Say Confess-- That He Or She Knows Less And Less But At Least Knows Less And Less About More And More.
World
Educated
Persons
The Fragility Of Love Is What Is Most At Stake Here—humanity's Most Crucial Three-word Avowal Is Often Uttered Only To Find Itself Suddenly Embarrassing Or Orphaned Or Isolated Or Ill-timed—but Strangely Enough It Can Work Better As A Literal Or Reassuring Statement Than A Transcendent Or Numinous Or Ecstatic One.
Love Is
Humanity
Three
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
(howard) Dean Is A Raving Nut Bag...a Raving, Sinister, Demagogic Nutbag...i And A Few Other People Saw That He Should Be Destroyed.
Nuts
People
Bags
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
We Have Lived In A World Where The Discoveries Of Physics And Genetics Are Far More Awe-inspiring, As Well As Infinitely More Liberating, Than The Claims Of Any Religion.
Discovery
World
Physics
Evolution Is, As Well As Smarter Than We Are, Infinitely More Callous And Cruel, And Also Capricious.
Evolution
Capricious
Callous
The Suicide-bombing Community Is Not Absolutely 100 Percent Religious, But It Is Pretty Nearly 100 Percent Religious.
Suicide
Religious
Community
One Has Children In The Expectation Of Dying Before Them. In Fact, You Want To Make Damn Sure You Die Before Them, Just As You Plant A Tree Or Build A House Knowing, Hoping That It Will Outlive You. That's How The Human Species Has Done As Well As It Has.
Children
Knowing
Expectations
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
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
A Good Liar Must Have A Good Memory.
Memories
Liars
Good Memories
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
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
Which Natural Gift Would You Most Like To Possess? The Ability To Master Other Languages (which Would Have Hugely Enhanced The Scope Of These Answers). How Would You Like To Die? Fully Conscious, And Either Fighting Or Reciting (or Fooling Around). What Do You Most Dislike About Your Appearance? The Way In Which It Makes Former Admirers Search For Neutral Words.
Fighting
Answers
Way
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
I Don't Think The War In Afghanistan Was Ruthlessly Enough Waged.
War
Thinking
Enough
If I Could Do Just One Thing, It Would Be To Dissociate Faith From Virtue, Now And For Good, And To Expose It For What It Is, A Servile Weakness, A Refuge In Cowardice, And A Willingness To Follow, With Credulity, People Who Are In The Highest Degree Unscrupulous.
People
Religion
Degrees
I'm Not That Keen On The Idea Of Being Unconscious.
Ideas
Unconscious
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
Human Society Is Inconceivable Unless Words Are To Some Extent Bonds.
Humans
Human Society
George Bush Made A Mistake When He Referred To The Saddam Hussein Regime As 'evil.' Every Liberal And Leftist Knows How To Titter At Such Black-and-white Moral Absolutism.
Mistake
Black And White
Moral Absolutism
There Are Many, Many Discrepant Views Within The Shia Theology About What's The Proper Role Of Religion In Society Or In The State, Should It Rule Now, Should It Claim To Govern People In The Here And Now, Or Should It Wait Until The Messiah, The 12th Imam, Comes Back And Would It Only Be Then Appropriate For Religious Rule To Bring About A World Of Universal Justice And Vindication.
Religious
Views
People
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
Religion Fosters Servility And Solipsism.
Religion
Atheism
Solipsism
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
Religion, It Is True, Still Possesses The Huge If Cumbersome And Unwieldy Advantage Of Having Come First.
Religion
Firsts
Advantage
I Don't Think The Soul Is Immortal, Or At Least Not Immortal In Individuals, But It May Be Immortal As An Aspect Of The Human Personality Because When I Talk About What Literature Nourishes, It Would Be Silly Of Me Or Reductionist To Say That It Nourishes The Brain.
Silly
Thinking
Personality
It Ought To Be An Offense To Be Excruciating And Unfunny In Circumstances Where Your Audience Is Almost Morally Obliged To Enthuse.
Cancer
Circumstances
Offense
If The Qur'an Was The Word Of God, It Had Been Dictated On A Very Bad Day.
Bad Day
Islam
Word Of God
I'm Not Particularly A Feminist, But If You Get Women Off The Animal Cycle Of Reproduction And Give Them Some Say In How Many Children They'll Have, Immediately The Floor Will Rise.
Children
Animal
Giving
Islam Is At Once The Most And The Least Interesting Of The World's Monotheisms. It Builds Upon Its Primitive Jewish And Christian Predecessors, Selecting A Chunk Here And A Shard There, And Thus If These Fall, It Partly Falls Also.
Christian
Fall
Interesting
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
The Mildest Criticism Of Religion Is Also The Most Radical And The Most Devastating One. Religion Is Man-made.
Men
Criticism
Made
The Bible May, Indeed Does, Contain A Warrant For Trafficking In Humans, For Ethnic Cleansing, For Slavery, For Bride-price, And For Indiscriminate Massacre, But We Are Not Bound By Any Of It Because It Was Put Together By Crude, Uncultured Human Mammals.
Motivational
Atheist
Religion
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
The Gods That We've Made Are Exactly The Gods You'd Expect To Be Made By A Species That's About Half A Chromosome Away From Being Chimpanzee.
Religion
Half
Chimpanzees
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
I Don't Think Romney Is Wacky At All, But Religion Makes Intelligent People Say And Do Wacky Things, Believe And Affirm Crazy Things. Left On His Own, Romney Would Never Have Said Something Like The Garden Of Eden Was In Missouri, And Will Be Again.
Crazy
Believe
Garden
Religion Is Not The Belief There Is A God. Religion Is The Belief God Tells You What To Do.
Belief
You Can Only Have One Aim Per Debate.
Debate
Aim
It Is A Pity That...the Majority Of Feminists And Their Allies Have Stuck To The Dead Ground Of "me Decade" Possessive Individualism, An Ideology That Has More In Common Than It Admits With The Prehistoric Right, Which It Claims To Oppose But Has In Fact Encouraged.
Abortion
Feminist
Allies
By Trying To Adjust To The Findings That It Once Tried So Viciously To Ban And Repress, Religion Has Only Succeeded In Restating The Same Questions That Undermined It In Earlier Epochs. What Kind Of Designer Or Creator Is So Wasteful And Capricious And Approximate? What Kind Of Designer Or Creator Is So Cruel And Indifferent? And - Most Of All - What Kind Of Designer Or Creator Only Chooses To "reveal" Himself To Semi-stupefied Peasants In Desert Regions?
Trying
Desert
Kind
Every Campaign, Garry Wills Once Wrote, "taught Nixon The Same Lesson: Mobilize Resentment Against Those In Power." History Taught The Same To Many Conservative And Reactionary Populist Movements, Whose Real Attitude To Those In Power And Authority Was One Of A Servile, Envious, Vicarious Adoration.
Attitude
Real
Campaigns
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 Iranian People Were Converted To Islam Not Very Much Longer After The Conquest Of The Arab World By Islam, But They Refused To Adopt The Arabic Language, And It's A Great Point Of Pride To Them That Persian Culture And The Persian Language And Persian Literature Survived The Conversion To Islam. And The Conversion To Islam Also Was For Most Of Them Not The Sunni Majority Form, But The Shia One. So There's A Great Discrepancy Between Iranian Society And Many Other Of What We Think Of As Arab Muslim States And Systems.
Pride
Thinking
Discrepancies Between
When You Consider How Many Millions Of Workdays Begin With Hangovers Great And Small, It Is Mildly ­surprising To Find How Few Real Descriptions Of The Experience Our Literature Can Boast.
Real
Hangover
Literature
I Say 'merry Christmas' To People I Don't Know, Or To People I Know Are Christians. I Say 'happy Hanukkah' To People I Know To Be Or Suspect To Be Jewish. And I Don't Say 'happy Kwanzaa,' Because I Think African Americans Get Enough Insults All Year Round.
Christian
Merry Christmas
Thinking
Indeed, It's Futile To Try And Use Holy Scripture To Support Any Political Position. I Deeply Distrust Anyone Who Does. Just Look At What An Islamic Republic Is Like.
Atheist
Islamic
Support
Quite Interesting, North Korea Is As If It's An Entirely Secular Dictatorship. In North Korea You Might Think That Was The Case Since It Has An Officially Communistic Ideology, But It's Not, It's The Most Religious State It's Possible To Imagine. It's Actually Two People Who Have Been Fused Into One, Maybe This Is Reminding You Of Something, There's The Father And There's The Son. It's One Short Of A Trinity.
Religious
Father
Son
An Individual Deficient In The Sense Of Humor Represents More Of A Challenge To Our Idea Of The Human Than A Person Of Subnormal Intelligence
Ideas
Challenges
Sense Of Humor
In Some Ways I Feel Sorry For Racists And For Religious Fanatics, Because They So Much Miss The Point Of Being Human, And Deserve A Sort Of Pity. But Then I Harden My Heart, And Decide To Hate Them All The More, Because Of The Misery They Inflict And Because Of The Contemptible Excuses They Advance For Doing So.
Religious
Sorry
Hate
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
I'm Dying, But So Are You
Inspirational
Dying
I Personally Want To "do" Death In The Active And Not The Passive, And To Be There To Look It In The Eye And Be Doing Something When It Comes For Me.
Death
Eye
Looks
In The Brute Physical World, And The One Encompassed By Medicine, There Are All Too Many Things That Could Kill You, Don't Kill You, And Then Leave You Considerably Weaker.
Medicine
World
Brutes
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
[even If The U.s. Doesn't Attack] Saddam Hussein Is Not Going To Survive. His Regime Is On The Verge Of Implosion.
Hussein
Regimes
Saddam
There's A Big Difference, As I'm Sure You Know, It's A Slightly Manneristic One, Between People Of The '60s And People Of '68. Being A Soixante-huitard - It's So Nice To Have A French Word For It - Is Very Different From Just Having Happened To Been A Baby Boomer In The '60s.
Baby
Nice
Differences
Urging Humans To Be Superhumans, On Pain Of Death And Torture, Is The Urging Of Terrible Self-abasement At Their Repeated And Inevitable Failure To Keep The Rules.
Atheist
Pain
Self
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
Skepticism Rather Than Credulity Is The Highest Principle That The Human Intellect Can Use To Ennoble Our Existence.
Religion
Use
Principles
In One Way, Traveling Has Narrowed My Mind. What I Have Discovered Is Something Very Ordinary And Unexciting, Which Is That Humans Are The Same Everywhere And That The Degree Of Variation Between Members Of Our Species Is Very Slight. This Is Of Course An Encouraging Finding; It Helps Arm You Against News Programs Back Home That Show Seething Or Abject Masses Of Either Fanatical Or Torpid People. In Another Way It Is A Depressing Finding; The Sorts Of Things That Make People Quarrel And Make Them Stupid Are The Same Everywhere.
Depressing
Stupid
Home
I Have Decided To Take Whatever My Disease Can Throw At Me.
Disease
Decided
"bombing Afghanistan Back Into The Stone Age" Was Quite A Favourite Headline For Some Wobbly Liberals. The Slogan Does All The Work. But An Instant's Thought Shows That Afghanistan Is Being, If Anything, Bombed Out Of The Stone Age.
Age
Doe
Stones
It's Normally Agreed That The Question 'how Are You?' Doesn't Put You On Your Oath To Give A Full Or Honest Answer.
Giving
Answers
Honest
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
In One Was, 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. But For Precisely This Reason, I Can't See Myself Smiting My Brow With Shock Or Hear Myself Whining About How It's All So Unfair: 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.
Light
Giving
Lovely
If You Want To Stay In For The Long Haul, And Lead A Life That Is Free From Illusions Either Propagated By You Or Embraced By You, Then I Suggest You Learn To Recognize And Avoid The Symptoms Of The Zealot And The Person Who Knows He Is Right. For The Dissenter, The Skeptical Mentality Is At Least As Important As Any Armor Of Principle.
Long
Important
Principles
You Don't Say 'they All Do It' Unless You Know You've Been Doing It Too.
Knows
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
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
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
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
The Realization That American Power Could And Should Be Used For The Defense Of Pluralism And As A Punishment For Fascism Came To Me In Sarajevo A Year Or Two Later... That Was An Early Quarrel Between Me And Many Of My Nation Colleagues, And It Was Also The First Time I Found Myself In The Same Trench As People Like Paul Wolfowitz And Jeane Kirkpatrick: A Shock I Had To Learn To Get Over. The Only Real Radicalism In Our Time Will Come As It Always Has From People Who Insist On Thinking For Themselves And Who Reject Party-mindedness.
Real
Party
Thinking
Your Least Favorite Virtue, Or Nominee For The Most Overrated One? Faith. Closely Followed—in View Of The Overall Shortage Of Time—by Patience.
Atheist
Views
Virtue
What They [the 9/11 Attackers] Abominate About 'the West', To Put It In A Phrase, Is Not What Western Liberals Don't Like And Can't Defend About Their Own System, But What They Do Like About It And Must Defend: Its Emancipated Women, Its Scientific Inquiry, Its Separation Of Religion From The State.
Phrases
West
Inquiry
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.
Witty
Fun
Tables
I Want To Urge You Very Strongly To Travel As Much As You Can, And To Evolve Yourself As An Internationalist. It's As Important A Part Of Your Education As A Radical As The Reading Of Any Book.
Travel
Book
Reading
Terrorism Is The Tactic Of Demanding The Impossible, And Demanding It At Gunpoint.
Tactics
Impossible
Terrorism
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
[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
I Have Often Thought That When I Do Die It Will Be Of Sheer Boredom.
Boredom
Dies
Sheer
In An Average Day, You May Well Be Confronted With Some Species Of Bullying Or Bigotry, Or Some Ill-phrased Appeal To The General Will, Or Some Petty Abuse Of Authority. If You Have A Political Loyalty, You May Be Offered A Shady Reason For Agreeing To A Lie Or A Half-truth That Serves Some Short-term Purpose. Everybody Devises Tactics For Getting Through Such Moments; Try Behaving "as If" They Need Not Be Tolerated And Are Not Inevitable.
Loyalty
Bullying
Average
There Are Two Clocks Ticking In Iran. One Is The Democracy Movement Clock Which Is Ticking Now Faster Than It Was But It's Got A Lot Of Catching Up To Do. And Then There's The Clock That's Ticking Towards A Nuclear Weaponry.
Iran
Two
Democracy
To Reflect Upon The Event Horizon Is A Great Deal More Awe-inspiring Than A Burning Bush Or A Wooden Statue That Weeps Or Pees Or Bleeds.
Religion
Events
Horizon
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
Religion Has Been An Enormous Multiplier Of Tribal Suspicion And Hatred.
Hatred
Enormous
Suspicion
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
Trust Is Not The Same As Faith. A Friend Is Someone You Trust. Putting Faith In Anyone Is A Mistake.
Faith
Mistake
The People Who Tend To Raise Antiwar Slogans Will Do So Generally When It's American Or British Interests Involved.
People
British
Interest
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
Haven't We All Heard Some Irritating Person Saying That If So-and-so Is Elected, Then He/she Is Absolutely Definitely Leaving The Country? There Must Be Some Reason Why It Is Mainly Liberals Who Tend To Say This, But The Chief Thing To Note About The Promise Is That It Is Usually An Empty One.
Country
Leaving
Promise
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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