Christopher Hitchens Quotes

There are several ways we can know what a dog, a bird or, indeed, any other organism can see, for example either by looking at the structure of the eye and comparing it with other species, or by behavioural tests.

It really sucks to be the number two intelligent species on this planet; you can just ask gorillas.

Philosophers and scientists confidently offer up traits said to be uniquely human, and the monkeys and apes casually knock them down -- toppling the pretension that humans constitute some sort of biological aristocracy among the beings on Earth.

Cats virtually always underestimate human intelligence just as we, perhaps, underestimate theirs.

Why cat were given such terrific peripheral vision when they spend so much time looking down their noses is difficult to understand.

They say dogs ignore their reflections in mirrors because they can't smell them. Dogs, unlike people, are not fooled by what they see.

A cat is, by and large, sophisticated and complex, and capable of creating three-act plays around any single piece of action.

It is my experience that in some areas [my poodle] Charley is more intelligent that I am, but in others he is abysmally ignorant. He can't read, can't drive a car, and has no grasp of mathematics. But in his own field of endeavor, which he is now practicing, the slow, imperial smelling over and anointing on an area, he has no peer. Of course his horizons are limited, but how wide are mine?

No distinction in kind rather than degree between ourselves and the chimps? No distinction? Seriously, folks? Here is a simple operational test: the chimpanzees invariably are the one behind the bars of their cages.

Maurice watched them argue again. Humans, eh? Think they're lords of creation. Not like us cats. We know we are. Ever see a cat feed a human? Case proven.

...the program of scientific experimentation that leads you to conclude that animals are imbeciles is profoundly anthropocentric. It values being able to find your way out of a sterile maze, ignoring the fact that if the researcher who designed the maze were to be parachuted into the jungles of Borneo, he or she would be dead of starvation in a week...If I as a human being were told that the standards by which animals are being measured in these experiments are human standards, I would be insulted.

She comes to me when she wants to be fed. And after I feed her -- guess what -- she's off to wherever she wants to be in the house, until the next time she gets hungry. She's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually a very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it, which is why I say this cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life.

Even today no computer can understand language as well as a three-year-old or see as well as a mouse.

Cats - a standing rebuke to behavioural scientists . . . least human of all creatures.

With the sense of sight, the idea communicates the emotion, whereas, with sound, the emotion communicates the idea, which is more direct and therefore more powerful.

For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.

The feature of living matter that most demands explanation is that it is almost unimaginably complicated in directions that convey a powerful illusion of deliberate design.

Cats are independent, by which I mean smart.

There isn't a sharp line dividing humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. All the time, we find animals doing things that, in our arrogance, we thought were just human.

Dalmatians are not only superior to other dogs, they are like all dogs, infinitely less stupid than men.

Cats have gnosis to a degree that is granted to few bishops.

Zoologists seem to consider the cerebration of cats and dogs about 50-50 -- but my respect always goes to the cool, sure, impersonal, delicately poised feline who minds his business and never slobbers.

It is obvious that the great majority of humans throughout history have had grossly, even ridiculously, unrealistic concepts of the world. Man is, among many other things, the mistaken animal, the foolish animal. Other species doubtless have much more limited ideas about the world, but what ideas they do have are much less likely to be wrong and are never foolish. White cats do not denigrate black, and dogs do not ask Baal, Jehovah, or other Semitic gods to perform miracles for them.

When I close my eyes my vision is even more powerful.

My cat's fully capable of speaking, but he says he's afraid of me turning it into a Kevin James vehicle.