Johann Hari Quotes:

Something has gone badly wrong with our culture. We've created a culture where really large numbers of the people around us can't bear to be present in their daily lives. They need to medicate themselves to get through their day.

Topics: Numbers, People, Needs, Large Numbers

For all the chatter that Britain has moved beyond class, recent studies have found that it determines the life chances of British people more today than at any point since the Second World War... A child born into a rich family in Britain will almost certainly live and die rich, while a child born into a poor family will almost certainly live and die poor.

source: - "Britain - a caste society?". JohannHari.com, January 29, 2006.

Topics: Children, War, Class, Poor Family, Rich Family

The bombs held in current nuclear arsenals are seventy times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. If we don't begin opposing the drift towards more and more of them, we will live in the shadow of the mushroom cloud for the rest of our lives - and millions may die there.

source: - "And the solution to the Iran crisis is". JohannHari.com, January 22, 2006.

Topics: Powerful, Clouds, Mushrooms, Arsenal

There is an emerging scientific consensus that global warming is making hurricanes more intense and more destructive. It turns out that Katrina fits into a pattern that scientists and greens have been trying to warn us about for a long time.

source: - "Hurricane Katrina - an environmental 9/11?". JohannHari.com, September 3, 2005.

Topics: Long, Trying, Patterns

The truth emerging from this scattered picture of nuclear proliferation is simple: there is a stronger chance of a nuclear bomb being used now than at almost any point in the Cold War.

source: - "Will we wake from our nuclear coma?". JohannHari.com, October 20, 2004.

Topics: War, Simple, Stronger, Proliferation, Nuclear Proliferation

All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do.

source: - "Johann Hari: Why should I respect these oppressive religions?" by Johann Hari, www.independent.co.uk. January 28, 2009.

Topics: Ideas, People, Discernment

The climate-change deniers are rapidly ending up with as much intellectual credibility as creationists and Flat Earthers. ...they are nudging close to having the moral credibility of Holocaust deniers.

source: - "The Shame of the Climate-change Deniers". www.independent.co.uk. April 24, 2005.

Topics: Holocaust, Intellectual, Climate, Climate Change Deniers, Holocaust Deniers

So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.

source: - "The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think". www.huffingtonpost.com. January 20, 2015.

Topics: Opposites, Addiction, Sobriety, Human Connection

I got my dad a great father's Day present. He called to say: 'Ach. Zis present is so good I now think it vas almost vorth having children.

Topics: Children, Dad, Father

I'm so patriotic, I think every British kid should have a chance to grow up to be our head of state.

source: - Twitter post from Jun 02, 2012

Topics: Growing Up, Patriotic, Kids

The US head of state grew up on food stamps. The British head of state grew up on the postage stamps.

source: - Twitter post from Jun 03, 2012

Topics: Grew Up, States, Food Stamps, Postage, Postage Stamps

Your working assumption, when you meet a homophobe, should be that they are gay.

source: - Twitter post from Oct 10, 2012

Topics: Gay, Assumption, Should, Homophobes

The greatest trick the rich - and their cheerleaders on the right - ever pulled was convincing the world that class didn't exist. Out here in the real world, it is more real and more rigid than it has been for a century.

source: - "Britain - a caste society?". JohannHari.com, January 29, 2006.

Topics: Real, Class, World

You will get something wrong today, and tomorrow, and every day of your life. So will I, and everybody you know. You don’t have a choice about being wrong sometimes: mistakes will be your life-long companion. But you do have a choice about whether to approach your error in terror so you suppress, ignore and repeat it — or to make it your honest, open ally in trying to get to the truth.

source: - "When Were You Last Wrong? We Need to Change How We Think About Our Errors" by Johann Hari, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 13, 2010.

Topics: Mistake, Errors, Long, Today And Tomorrow

The opposite of addiction is human connection. And I think that has massive implications for the war on drugs. The treatment of drug addicts almost everywhere in the world is much closer to Tent City than it is to anything in Portugal. Our laws are built around the belief that drug addicts need to be punished to stop them. But if pain and trauma and isolation cause addiction, then inflicting more pain and trauma and isolation is not going to solve that addiction. It's actually going to deepen it.

source: - "Johann Hari: 'I failed badly. When you harm people, you should shut up, go away and reflect on what happened'". Interview with Decca Aitkenhead, www.theguardian.com. January 2, 2015.

Topics: Pain, War, Thinking, Human Connection, Implications