Christopher Hitchens Quotes

Arguments that prove too much prove nothing.

People are always trying to draw simplistic dialectics that can capture things.

Obviously something is wrong with the entire argument of "obviousness".

Sophistry is the fallacy of argument.

No, Blitz. That's oversimplifying it.

Our argument is not flatly circular, but something like it. It has the form, figuratively speaking, of a closed curve in space.

Reason is simply a vast tautology.

The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading

Damn all false dichotomies to hell

I do not propose to criticize the fatuous argument I have just outlined; here, to expound is to expose.

Symmetry is overrated. Overrated is symmetry.

You can't assert an answer just because it's not something else.

The fly in her argument is that when she says, 'they' will feel like lemons, we don't know who 'they' are. And 'they' might BE lemons.

Who is apt, on occasion, to assign a multitude of reasons when one will do? This is a sure sign of weakness in argument.

Using insult instead of argument is the sign of a small mind.

Extrapolations are the last refuge of a groundless argument.

Observation: I can't see a thing. Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Our garden was debated territory between five local cats, and we'd heard that the best way to keep other cats out of the garden was to have one yourself. A moment's rational thought here will spot the slight flaw in this reasoning.

The absent are easily refuted.

You cannot dispute the ridiculous. You cannot argue reasonably with evil.

My proof convinces the ignorant, and the wise man's proof convinces me. But he whose reasoning falls between wisdom and ignorance, I neither can convince him, nor can he convince me.

How it chanced that a man who reasoned on his premises so ably, should assume his premises so foolishly, is one of the great mysteries of human nature.

To expect reason is where the fallacy lies.

Scientists and theologians can’t offer better than circular arguments, because there are no other kinds of arguments. Bible believers quote the Bible, and scientists quote other scientists. How do either scientists or theologians answer this question about the accuracy of their conclusions: “In reference to what?

Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once.