The Enormous Dynamic And Creative, As Well As Destructive Energy Of Capitalism... Is Written Up With More Praise And More Respect By Marx And Engels In The 1848 Communist Manifesto Than Probably By Anyone Since. I Don't Think Anyone Has Ever Said So Precisely And With Such Awed Admiration How Great Capitalism Is, How Inventive, How Innovative, How Dynamic, How Much Force Of Creativity It Unleashes.

-Christopher Hitchens

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The Enormous Dynamic And

Christopher Hitchens

Topic

Creativity

Thinking

Creative

More From Christopher Hitchens

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

How Ya Doin'?' I Always Think, What Kind Of A Question Is That?, And I Always Reply, 'a Bit Early To Tell.

Thinking

Kind

Bits

I Have A Strong Constitution Which Has Served Me Quite Well, Though If I Hadn't Had Such A Strong One I Might Have Led A More Healthy Life Perhaps.

Strong

Healthy

Might

The Taming And Domestication Of Religion Is One Of The Unceasing Chores Of Civilization.

Civilization

Taming

Chores

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

One Of The Many Problems With The American Left Has Been Its Image As Something Rather Too Solemn, Mirthless, Herbivorous, Dull, Monochrome, Righteous, And Boring.

Dull

Problem

Boring

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

No School Of Philosophy Has Ever Solved This Question Of Whether Being Determines Consciousness Or The Other Way Around. It May Be A False Antithesis.

Philosophy

School

May

Many More People Are Poor And Sick Because Of The Life Of Mt: Even More Will Be Poor And Sick If Her Example Is Followed. She Was A Fanatic, A Fundamentalist, And A Fraud, And A Church That Officially Protects Those Who Violate The Innocent Has Given Us Another Clear Sign Of Where It Truly Stands On Moral And Ethical Questions.

Ethical Questions

People

Sick

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

The Person Who Is Certain, And Who Claims Divine Warrant For His Certainty, Belongs Now To The Infancy Of Our Species.

Humility

Divine

Claims

There Are, After All, Atheists Who Say They Wish The Fable Were True But Are Unable To Suspend The Requisite Disbelief, Or Who Have Relinquished Belief Only With Regret. To This I Reply: Who Wishes That There Was A Permanent, Unalterable Celestial Despotism That Subjected Us To Continual Surveillance And Could Convict Us Of Thought-crime, And Who Regarded Us As Its Private Property Even After We Died? How Happy We Ought To Be, At The Reflection That There Exists Not A Shred Of Respectable Evidence To Support Such A Horrible Hypothesis.

Atheist

Regret

Reflection

A Faction Willing To Take The Risks Of Making War On The Ossified Status Quo In The Middle East Can Be Described As Many Things, But Not As Conservative.

War

Risk

East

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

It's True That Obscenity Is A Matter Of Taste And In The Eye Of The Beholder.

Eye

Matter

Taste

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

One Of The Many Dreadful Aspects Of The Kennedy 'legacy' Is The Now-unbreakable Grip Of Celebrity Politics, Image-doctoring, Stage Management, And "torch-passing" Rhetoric In General.

History

Torches

Legacy

So Here We Have Found A Means Of A) Alienating Even The Most Flexible And Patient Palestinians; While B) Frustrating The Efforts Of The More Principled And Compromising Israelis; While C) Empowering And Financing Some Of The Creepiest Forces In American And Israeli Society; And D) Heaping Ordure On Our Own Secular Founding Documents. When Will The Justice Department And The Congress And The Supreme Court Become Aware Of This Huge And Rank Offense, Which Is Designed To Bring Us Ever Nearer To Holy War?

War

Mean

Justice

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

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

We Know Of No Spectacle More Ridiculous—or More Contemptible—than That Of The Religious Reactionaries Who Dare To Re-write The History Of Our Republic. Or Who Try To Do So. Is It Possible That, In Their Vanity And Stupidity, They Suppose That They Can Erase The Name Of Thomas Jefferson And Replace It With The Name Of Some Faith-based Mediocrity Whose Name Is Already Obscure? If So, We Cheerfully Resolve To Mock Them, And To Give Them The Lie In Their Teeth.

Religious

Lying

Writing

The Violence In The Bible Is Appalling.

Violence

The Polls Undoubtedly Help To Decide What People Think, But Their Most Important Long-term Influence May Be On How People Think. The Interrogative Process Is Very Distinctly Weighted Against The Asking Of An Intelligent Question Or The Recording Of A Thoughtful Answer.

Thoughtful

Intelligent

Thinking

It's A Better Tradition For People Who Think For Themselves And Who Don't Pray In Aid Of Any Supernatural Authority. That's What You Should Be Spending Your Life Is In Spreading And Deepening That Tradition.

Thinking

People

Praying

I Love It When Muslims Go To War With Each Other, As I Do When The Christians Do, Because It Shows There's No Such Thing As The Christian World And The Islamic World. That's All Crap.

Christian

War

Islamic

Jesus Is Santa Claus For Adults.

Jesus

Santa

Adults

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

All This Could Be Part Of A Plan. There Is No Way An Atheist Can Prove It’s Not. But It’s Some Plan, Isn't It? With Mass Destruction, Pitiless Extermination, Annihilation Going On All The Time. And All Of This Set In Motion On A Scale That’s Absolutely Beyond Our Imagination, In Order That The Pope Can Tell People Not To Jerk Off.

Atheist

Mass Destruction

Order

When You Fall Ill, People Send You Cds. Very Often, In My Experience, These Are By Leonard Cohen

Fall

Cds

People

I Think Being An Atheist Is Something You Are, Not Something You Do.

Atheist

Thinking

As I've Said Before, You Can Be An Atheist And Anything You Like.

Atheist

Said

I Still Make Sure To Go, At Least Once Every Year, To A Country Where Things Cannot Be Taken For Granted, And Where There Is Either Too Much Law And Order Or Too Little.

Country

Taken

Order

One Can't Live Without Fear, It's A Question Of What Is Your Attitude Towards Fear? I'm Afraid Of A Sordid Death. I'm Afraid That I Will Die In An Ugly Or Squalid Way, And Cancer Can Be Very Vigorous In That Respect.

Attitude

Cancer

Ugly

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

The Diet Book Is One Of Those Fool-and-money Separation Devices That Seems, Like Roulette Or Slot Machines, Never To Lose Its Power.

Food

Book

Machines

I'm An Atheist. I'm Not Neutral About Religion, I'm Hostile To It. I Think It Is A Positively Bad Idea, Not Just A False One. And I Mean Not Just Organized Religion, But Religious Belief Itself.

Religious

Atheist

Mean

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

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

The Crucial Distinction Between Systems...was No Longer Ideological. The Main Political Difference Was Between Those Who Did, And Those Who Did Not, Believe That The Citizen Could -- Or Should -- Be The Property Of The State.

Believe

Political Differences

Citizens

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

The Thing About Religion Is That It's The First And The Worst. The Worst Because It's The First.

Firsts

Worst

What Happens To The Faith Healer And The Shaman When Any Poor Citizen Can See The Full Effect Of Drugs Or Surgeries, Administered Without Ceremonies Or Mystifications? Roughly The Same Thing As Happens To The Rainmaker When The Climatologist Turns Up, Or To The Diviner From The Heavens When Schoolteachers Get Hold Of Elementary Telescopes.

Heaven

Drug

Citizens

The Term 'the American Left' Is As Near To Being Meaningless Or Nonsensical As Any Term Could Really Be In Politics. It Isn't Really A Force In Politics Anymore. And It Would Do Well To Ask Itself Why That Is.

Nonsensical

Force

Term

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

So There's Nothing More Vulgar Than The Sound Of Someone Saying, God Bless America, Someone Who Doesn't Really Believe It, But He Thinks It Will Make Him Look Good To Other People. I Think It's The Most Nauseating Spectacle.

Believe

Thinking

America

We Keep On Being Told That Religion, Whatever Its Imperfections, At Least Instills Morality. On Every Side, There Is Conclusive Evidence That The Contrary Is The Case And That Faith Causes People To Be More Mean, More Selfish, And Perhaps Above All, More Stupid.

Atheist

Stupid

Selfish

It's Impossible, I Think, However Much I'd Become Disillusioned Politically Or Evolve Into A Post-political Person, I Don't Think I'd Ever Change My View That Socialism Is The Best Political Moment Humans Have Ever Come Up With.

Thinking

Views

Political

To Be In Opposition Is Not To Be A Nihilist.

Nihilist

Opposition

I Was Taught Very Early On That The State Can Be, And Is, A Liar And A Murderer.

Liars

Taught

States

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

It Is Only Those Who Hope To Transform Human Beings Who End Up By Burning Them, Like The Waste Product Of A Failed Experiment.

Burning

Waste

Ends

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

The Amazing Fact Is That America Is Founded On A Document. It's A Work In Progress. It Can Be Tested By Each Generation.

America

Progress

Generations

Principles Have A Way Of Enduring, As Do The Few Irreducible Individuals Who Maintain Allegiance To Them.

Principles

Way

Individual

When I Went To Czechoslovakia Under The Old Communist Regime One Day In The '80s, I Thought To Myself Whatever I Do, Whatever Happens To Me In Prague I'm Not Going To Use The Name Kafka, I'm Just Not Going To Do It. I Won't Do It; It's So Easy, Everyone Else Does, I'm Not Going To. I'll Write The First Non-kafka Mentioning Piece.

Writing

Names

One Day

The Trade-off Between Freedom And Security, So Often Proposed So Seductively, Very Often Leads To The Loss Of Both.

Loss

Trade

Eternal Vigilance

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

I Became A Journalist Because I Didn't Want To Have To Rely On The Press For Information... I Only Read It To Make Sure Of Whatever Everyone Else Thinks Is Going On, Because It's Useful To Know What People Think Is The News.

Thinking

People

News

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

No One Has The Right To Tell Me What To Do Because He Has A Divine Warrant.

Religion

Divine

Warrants

Well Look, I Mean, I Think That Prayer And Holy Water, And Things Like That Are All Fine. They Don't Do Any Good, But They Don't Necessarily Do Any Harm. It's Touching To Be Thought Of In That Way. It Makes Up For Those Who Tell Me That I've Got My Just Desserts.

Prayer

Mean

Thinking

Where Would You Like To Live? In A State Of Conflict Or A Conflicted State?

Conflict

States

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

I Learned That To Be Amusing Was Not To Be Frivolous And That Language - Always The Language - Was The Magic Key As Much To Prose As To Poetry.

Keys

Magic

Language

My Children, To The Extent That They Have Found Religion, Have Found It From Me, In That I Insist On At Least A Modicum Of Religious Education For Them.

Religious

Children

Found

Those Who Want To Be Offended Don't Have The Right To Try And Close Down The Newspaper That Offends Them.

Trying

Want

Newspapers

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

If I Was To Interrupt This Article Every Few Sentences, Asking You Whether Or Not I Was Making A Good Impression On You, I Hope And Believe That You Would Think I Was A Servile Jerk. Yet This Is What Our Politicians Are Doing In Every Speech.

Believe

Thinking

Political

Redemption Is Promised At The Low Price Of Surrender Of Your Critical Faculties.

Religion

Redemption

Surrender

Virtue And Merit Can Become Their Opposites If They Are Exacted Or Compelled.

Opposites

Merit

Virtue

Who Are Your Favourite Heroines In Real Life? The Women Of Afghanistan, Iraq, And Iran Who Risk Their Lives And Their Beauty To Defy The Foulness Of Theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali And Azar Nafisi As Their Ideal Feminine Model.

Real

Iran

Iraq

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

To Be Against Rationalization Is Not The Same As To Be Opposed To Reasoning.

Reasoning

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.

Names

Relief

Speak

Beautiful Sentences Pop Into My Head. Beautiful Sentences That Aren't Always Absolutely Accurate. Then, I Have To Choose Between The Beautiful Sentence And Being Absolutely Accurate. It Can Be A Difficult Choice.

Beautiful

Difficult Choices

Pops

(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 Became A Journalist Because One Didn't Have To Specialise.

Journalist

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

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

Mt [mother Teresa] Was Not A Friend Of The Poor. She Was A Friend Of Poverty. She Said That Suffering Was A Gift From God. She Spent Her Life Opposing The Only Known Cure For Poverty, Which Is The Empowerment Of Women And The Emancipation Of Them From A Livestock Version Of Compulsory Reproduction.

Mother

Suffering

Empowerment

One Of The Reasons I Decided To Apply For American Citizenship After Something Like A Quarter Of Century Of Living Here On A British, European Union Passport And A Green Card, Was My Identification With The United States In The Post-september 11th Period.

United States

Cards

Unions

In My Life, The Only Certainty Is To Be Uncertain. I'm An Unbeliever Who Believes In Skepticism. I'm Only Sure About Being Unsure.

Believe

Uncertain

Skepticism

I Have Nowhere Claimed Nor Even Implied That Unbelief Is A Guarantee Of Good Conduct Or Even An Indicator Of It.

Guarantees

Indicators

Implied

Solidarity Is An Attitude Of Resistance, I Suppose, Or It Should Be.

Attitude

Resistance

Should

With Modern American Dentistry It Is Simply Amazing To See What Transformation Can Be Wrought In A Single Day.

Transformation

Modern

Dentistry

No Moral Person Would Do Such A Thing Unless They Thought It Was Divinely Warranted.

Religion

Moral

Persons

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

For Me, The Life Of The Angler Is An Almost Flawless Example Of How Not To Have A Good Time.

Example

Flawless

Good Times

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

Many Of The Points Made By The Antiwar Movement Have Been Consciously Assimilated By The Pentagon And Its Lawyers And Advisers. Precision Weaponry Is Good In Itself, But Its Ability To Discriminate Is Improving And Will Continue To Improve. Cluster Bombs Are Perhaps Not Good In Themselves, But When They Are Dropped On Identifiable Concentrations Of Taliban Troops, They Do Have A Heartening Effect.

Troops

Bombs

Movement

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

I'm Afraid The Ss's Relationship With The Catholic Church Is Something The Church Still Has To Deal With And Does Not Deny.

Catholic

Church

Doe

Name One Moral Action Performed By A Believer That Could Not Have Been Done By A Nonbeliever.

Names

Done

Action

The Suicide-bombing Community Is Not Absolutely 100 Percent Religious, But It Is Pretty Nearly 100 Percent Religious.

Suicide

Religious

Community

I'm Not Afraid Of Being Dead, That's To Say There's Nothing To Be Afraid Of. I Won't Know I'm Dead, Would Be My Strong Conviction. And If I Find That I'm Alive In Any Way At All, That'll Be A Pleasant Surprise. I Quite Like Surprises.

Strong

Would Be

Alive

I Retain What's Interesting To Me, But I Don't Have A Lot Of Strategic Depth.

Interesting

Depth

Strategic

A Point, Like A Joke, Is A Terrible Thing To Miss.

Missing

Terrible

Terrible Things

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

Martin Is Your Best Friend, Isn't He?' A Sweet And Well-intentioned Girl Once Said When Both Of Us Were Present: It Was The Only Time I Ever Felt Awkward About This Precious Idea, Which Seemed Somehow To Risk Diminishment If It Were Uttered Aloud.

Best Friend

Girl

Sweet

The People Who Must Never Have Power Are The Humorless. To Impossible Certainties Of Rectitude They Ally Tedium And Uniformity

People

Allies

Impossible

Religion Attacks Us In Our Deepest Integrity By Saying We Wouldn't Be Able To Make A Moral Decision Without It.

Integrity

Decision

Able

I Do Not Believe Any Of The Statistical Claims That Are Made About Public Opinion. I Don't See Why Anybody Does.

Believe

Public Opinion

Doe

Kissinger Projects A Strong Impression Of A Man At Home In The World And On Top Of His Brief. But There Are A Number Of Occasions When It Suits Him To Pose As A Sort Of Candide: Naive, And Ill-prepared For And Easily Unhorsed By Events. No Doubt This Pose Costs Him Something In Point Of Self-esteem. It Is A Pose, Furthermore, Which He Often Adopts At Precisely The Time When The Record Shows Him To Be Knowledgeable, And When Knowledge Or Foreknowledge Would Also Confront Him With Charges Of Responsibility Or Complicity.

Strong

Self Esteem

Responsibility

We Have Millions And Millions Of North Korean Children Totally Stunted In Mind And Body And Will Have To Be Dealt With At Some Point, Who Have Been Raised To Believe That They Live In A Regime That Is Run By A God.

Running

Children

Believe

[religion] Attacks Us In Our Deepest Integrity - The Core Of Our Self-respect. Religion Says That We Would Not Know Right From Wrong, We Would Not Know An Evil, Wicked Act From A Decent Human Act Without Divine Permission, Without Divine Authority Or Without, Even Worse, Either The Fear Of A Divine Punishment Or The Hope Of A Divine Reward. It Strips Us Of The Right To Make Our Own Determination, As All Humans Always Have, About What Is And What Is Not A Right Human Action.

Determination

Integrity

Self

A Sort Of Moral Blackmail Is Exerted From Both Poles. The Underclass, One Gathers, Should Be Dulled With Charity And Welfare Provision Lest It Turn Nasty. The Upper Class Must Likewise Be Conciliated By Vast Handouts, Lest It Lose The "incentive" To Go On Generating Wealth.

Class

Goes On

Charity

Did We Not Aid The Grisly Taliban To Achieve And Hold Power? Yes Indeed 'we' Did. Well, Does That Not Double Or Triple Our Responsibility To Remove Them From Power?

Responsibility

Doe

Achieve

In Ridiculing A Pathetic Human Fallacy, Which Seeks Explanation Where None Need Be Sought And Which Multiplies Unnecessary Assumptions, One Should Not Mimic Primitive Ontology In Order To Challenge It. Better To Dispose Of The Needless Assumption Altogether. This Holds True For Everything From Noah's Flood To The Holocaust.

Atheist

Order

Holocaust

Religion Is Compulsory In English Schools, You Know.

School

Knows

Compulsory

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

Cheap Booze Is A False Economy.

Alcohol

Economy

Booze

I Think Religion Should Be Treated With Ridicule, Hatred And Contempt, And I Claim That Right.

Thinking

Hatred

Claims

Time Spent Arguing With The Faithful Is, Oddly Enough, Almost Never Wasted.

Time

Faithful

Arguing

Very Often The Test Of One's Allegiance To A Cause Or To A People Is Precisely The Willingness To Stay The Course When Things Are Boring, To Run The Risk Of Repeating An Old Argument Just One More Time, Or Of Going One More Round With A Hostile Or (much Worse) Indifferent Audience.

Running

People

Risk

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

To What Faults Do You Feel Most Indulgent? To The Ones That Arise From Urgent Material Needs.

Needs

Faults

Materialism

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

The Faithful Believe That Certain Truths Have Been 'revealed.' The Skeptics And Secularists Believe That Truth Is Only To Be Sought By Free Inquiry And Trial And Error. Only One Of Those Positions Is Dogmatic.

Believe

Errors

Faithful

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

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

Billy Graham Is A Boring, Racist Charlatan.

Religion

Racist

Boring

In Modern Greek History, There Is A Close Relationship Between National Humiliation And Political Radicalization.

Political

Greek

Modern

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

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

For Some Reason, Which I Believe I Can Guess, The Churches/mosques Want Control Of People When Or While They Are The Most Vulnerable Or Suggestible. If They Can't Get Them In School, Then They Get Them When They Are Hungry, Or Frightened, Or Ill, Or Homeless, Or Unemployed. Same Difference. Here's Your Gruel, And Here's A Tract.

Believe

School

Differences

Three Words For Those Who Want To Put The Christ Back In Christmas: Jingle Bell Rock.

Rocks

Jingles

Three

It's Probably A Merciful Thing That Pain Is Impossible To Describe From Memory

Pain

Memories

Impossible

Doubt, Skepticism, Innovation, And Inquiry Are The Only Means By Which Wonder, Beauty, Awe, And Symmetry Will Be Discovered.

Mean

Innovation

Doubt

The Pre-history Of Our Species Is Hag-ridden With Episodes Of Nightmarish Ignorance And Calamity, For Which Religion Used To Identify, Not Just The Wrong Explanation, But The Wrong Culprit. Human Sacrifices Were Made Preeminently In Times Of Epidemics, Useless Prayers Were Uttered, Bogus Miracles Attested To, And Scapegoats - Such As Jews Or Heretics Or Witches - Hunted Down And Burned.

Prayer

Ignorance

Sacrifice

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

It Would Have Been Very Alarming - Morally, And In Other Ways Too - If An Attack Of That Nature, The 11 September Attacks, Had Not Aroused In Us And In Our Governments And Societies The Spirit Of Self-defence. If That Had Not Been One Of The Responses It Seems To Me There Would Have Been Very Grave Cause For Concern.

Government

Self

Way

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 Become Accomplices In Evil Every Time We Seek To Soothe The Unslakable Appetites Of The Crime Family That Sits In Pyongyang.

Evil

Politics

Crime

Evelyn Waugh Was In Error When He Said That In New York There Was A Neurosis In The Air Which The Inhabitants Mistook For Energy. There Was, Rather, A Tensile Excitement In The Air Which Made One Think - Made Me Think For Many Years - That Time Spent Asleep In New York Was Somehow Time Wasted. Whether This Thought Has Lengthened Or Shortened My Life I Shall Never Know, But It Has Certainly Colored It.

New York

Thinking

Air

Distrust Compassion; Prefer Dignity For Yourself And Others. Don't Be Afraid To Be Thought Arrogant Or Selfish.

Selfish

Compassion

Mammals

Human Society Is Inconceivable Unless Words Are To Some Extent Bonds.

Humans

Human Society

What Is It You Most Dislike? Stupidity, Especially In Its Nastiest Forms Of Racism And Superstition.

Atheist

Stupid

Racism

The Best Blended Scotch In The History Of The World - Which Was Also The Favourite Drink Of The Iraqi Baath Party, As It Still Is Of The Palestinian Authority And The Libyan Dictatorship And Large Branches Of The Saudi Arabian Royal Family - Is Johnnie Walker Black. Breakfast Of Champions, Accept No Substitute.

Party

Scotch

Champion

It Is Exactly The Fear Of Revenge That Motivates The Deepest Crimes, From The Killing Of The Enemy's Children Lest They Grow Up To Play Their Own Part, To The Erasure Of The Enemy's Graveyards And Holy Places So That His Hated Name Can Be Forgotten.

Children

Growing Up

Revenge

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

The Secular Argument, Or The Liberal Argument, Is To As Much As Possible Remove Taboos So Things Do Not Become Unmentionable; To Let Some Air Into The Discussion.

Air

Argument

Secular

A Good Liar Must Have A Good Memory.

Memories

Liars

Good Memories

At Oxford One Was Positively Encouraged To Take Wine During Tutorials. The Tongue Must Be Untied.

Wine

Oxford

Tutorial

The Death Toll Is Not Nearly High Enough... Too Many [jihadists] Have Escaped.

Tolls

Enough

Those Of Us Who Write And Study History Are Accustomed To Its Approximations And Ambiguities. This Is Why We Do Not Take Literally The Tenth-hand Reports Of Frightened And Illiterate Peasants Who Claim To Have Seen Miracles Or To Have Had Encounters With Messiahs And Prophets And Redeemers Who Were, Like Them, Mere Humans. And This Is Also Why We Will Never Submit To Dictation From Those Who Display A Fanatical Belief In Certainty And Revelation.

Atheist

Writing

Hands

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

The One Thing That The Racist Can Never Manage Is Anything Like Discrimination: He Is Indiscriminate By Definition.

Racist

Definitions

Discrimination

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

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

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

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

If You Gave [jerry] Falwell An Enema He Could Be Buried In A Matchbox.

Atheist

Religion

Buried

People Are Frightened Of Death, And The Central Lie Of All Religion Is That There’s A Cure For This And An Exception We’ve Made In Your Own Case: An Eternal Life Offered If You Make The Right Propitiations And The Right Abjections. Well, I’m Sorry. I Think That It's The Height Of Immorality To Lie To People Like That. That’s Why [religion] Survives.

Sorry

Lying

Thinking

Hardest Of All, As One Becomes Older, Is To Accept That Sapient Remarks Can Be Drawn From The Most Unwelcome Or Seemingly Improbable Sources, And That The Apparently More Trustworthy Sources Can Lead One Astray.

Henry Kissinger

Trustworthy

Accepting

Today The Least Educated Of My Children Knows Much More About The Natural Order Than Any Of The Founders Of Religion, And One Would Think-though The Connection Is Not A Fully Demonstrable One-that This Is Why They Seem So Uninterested In Sending Fellow Humans To Hell.

Children

Thinking

Order

Only A Complete Moral Idiot Can Believe For An Instant That We Are Fighting Against The Wretched Of The Earth. We Are Fighting, As I Said Before, Against The Scum Of The Earth

Believe

Fighting

Scum Of The Earth

Religion Has Been An Enormous Multiplier Of Tribal Suspicion And Hatred.

Hatred

Enormous

Suspicion

The True Essence Of A Dictatorship Is In Fact Not Its Regularity But Its Unpredictability And Caprice; Those Who Live Under It Must Never Be Able To Relax, Must Never Be Quite Sure If They Have Followed The Rules Correctly Or Not.

Essence

Relax

Able

I Sympathize Afresh With The Mighty Voltaire Who, When Badgered On His Deathbed And Urged To Renounce The Devil, Murmured That This Was No Time To Be Making Enemies.

Enemy

Devil

Renounce

Cluster Bombs Are Perhaps Not Good In Themselves, But When They Are Dropped On Identifiable Concentrations Of Taliban Troops, They Do Have A Heartening Effect.

Bombs

Troops

Concentration

In Our Time, The Symbol Of State Intrusion Into The Private Life Is The Mandatory Urine Test.

Tests

Life Is

Intrusion

The People Who Tend To Raise Antiwar Slogans Will Do So Generally When It's American Or British Interests Involved.

People

British

Interest

The Human Wish To Credit Good Things As Miraculous And To Charge Bad Things To Another Account Is Apparently Universal.

Wish

Credit

Good Things

I Don't Envy Or Much Respect People Who Are Completely Politicised.

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

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

A Melancholy Lesson Of Advancing Years Is The Realisation That You Can't Make Old Friends.

Years

Old Friends

Lessons

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

The Penalty For Getting Mugged In An American City And Losing Your Id Is That You Can't Fly Home.

Home

Cities

Losing

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

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

I Am A Person Of Faith: I Am A Person Who Will Believe Practically Anything On No Evidence At All.

Believe

Evidence

Persons

Part Of The Function Of Memory Is To Forget; The Omni-retentive Mind Will Break Down And Produce At Best An Idiot Savant Who Can Recite A Telephone Book, And At Worst A Person To Whom Every Grudge And Slight Is As Yesterday's.

Memories

Book

Yesterday

Religion Is Not Just Incongruent With Morality, But In Essential Ways Incompatible With It.

Essentials

Way

Morality

If Asked My Opinion About Virginity, I Would Say, "i'm Opposed To It." I Don't Think It Deserves To Be Celebrated, At Any Rate. Or At Least, If I'm Not Opposed, I'm Very Highly Skeptical And Critical Of It.

Thinking

Opinion

Rate

If I Was Told To Sacrifice Something To Prove My Devotion To God, If I Was Told To Do What All Monotheists Are Told To Do And Admire The Man Who Said 'yes I'll Gut My Kid To Show My Love Of God.'

Kids

Sacrifice

Men

To Terrify Children With The Image Of Hell, To Consider Women An Inferior Creation - Is That Good For The World?

Inspirational

Motivational

Atheist

It’s Considered Perfectly Normal In This Society To Approach Dying People Who You Don’t Know But Who Are Unbelievers And Say, ‘now Are You Gonna Change Your Mind?’ That Is Considered Almost A Polite Question.

Perfectly Normal

People

Mind

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

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

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

Whenever I Hear Some Bigmouth In Washington Or The Christian Heartland Banging On About The Evils Of Sodomy Or Whatever, I Mentally Enter His Name In My Notebook And Contentedly Set My Watch. Sooner Rather Than Later, He Will Be Discovered Down On His Weary And Well-worn Old Knees In Some Dreary Motel Or Latrine, With An Expired Visa Card, Having Tried To Pay Well Over The Odds To Be Peed Upon By Some Apache Transvestite.

Notebook

Christian

Names

It [defending Salmon Rushdie] Was, If I Can Phrase It Like This, A Matter Of Everything I Hated Versus Everything I Loved. In The Hate Column: Dictatorship, Religion, Stupidity, Demagogy, Censorship, Bullying And Intimidation. In The Love Column: Literature, Irony, Humor, The Individual And The Defense Of Free Expression.

Bullying

Hate

Expression

In Order To Terminate A Pregnancy, You Have To Still A Heartbeat, Switch Off A Developing Brain.

Pregnancy

Order

Abortion

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

Take The Risk Of Thinking For Yourself

Thinking

Risk

Greatest Atheist

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

Skepticism Rather Than Credulity Is The Highest Principle That The Human Intellect Can Use To Ennoble Our Existence.

Religion

Use

Principles

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

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

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

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

How Is The United States At Once The Most Conservative And Commercial And The Most Revolutionary Society On Earth?

United States

Earth

Conservative

A Rule Of Thumb With Humor; If You Worry That You Might Be Going Too Far, You Have Already Not Gone Far Enough. If Everybody Laughs, You Have Failed.

Laughing

Worry

Gone

Nothing Could Make Me Forget What The Reagan Years Had Actually Been Like.

Years

Forget

I'd Always Somehow Felt Slightly As If I'd Been Born In The Wrong Country.

Country

Born

Felt

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

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

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

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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