Fanaticism Quotes - Page 6

• Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings.

  Salman Rushdie

  History, Purity, Havoc

  Salman Rushdie (1990). “In good faith”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• But as in all cults, what's central to the Communist Party is the belief system and the elimination of nuance. From there you're very slowly led down the road to fanaticism and mass murder.

  Alexei Sayle

  Party, Nuance, Belief

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• Moderation is part of faith, so those who accuse Muslim schools of fostering fanaticism should learn a bit more about Islam.

  Cat Stevens

  Faith, School, Islam

  "Faith and the future" by Yusuf Islam, www.theguardian.com. September 18, 2011.

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• Are we not all of us fanatics? I say only what you of the U.S.A. pretend you do not know. Attachments are of great seriousness. Choose your attachments carefully. Choose your temple of fanaticism with great care. What you wish to sing of as tragic love is an attachment not carefully chosen. Die for one person? This is a craziness. Persons change, leave, die, become ill. They leave, lie, go mad, have sickness, betray you, die. Your nation outlives you. A cause outlives you.

  David Foster Wallace

  Lying, Love Is, Attachment

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• A good working definition of fanaticism is that you are so convinced of your views and policies that you are sure that anyone who opposed them must be either stupid and decieved or have some ulterior motive. We are today a nation where almost everyone in the public eye displays fanaticism with every utterance.

  Orson Scott Card

  Stupid, Eye, Views

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• Our attachments are our temple, what we worship, no? What we give ourselves to, what we invest with faith. . . . Attachments are of great seriousness. Choose your attachments carefully. Choose your temple of fanaticism with great care.

  David Foster Wallace

  Attachment, Giving, Care

  David Foster Wallace (2011). “Infinite Jest”, p.83, Hachette UK

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• Without fanaticism we cannot accomplish anything.

  Evita Peron

  Inspirational, Accomplish

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• Virtuous and vicious every man must be, few in the extreme, but all in the degree.

  Alexander Pope

  Men, Degrees, Virtue

  Alexander Pope (1848). ““The” Select Poetical Works of Alexander Pope: With the Life and Portrait of the Author”, p.194

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• Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies.

  William Shakespeare

  Loyalty, Kings, Enemy

  'Henry VIII' (1613) act 3, sc. 2, l. 456

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• Moral qualities rule the world, but at short distances the senses are despotic.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Distance, Teaching, Quality

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics, Vol. V (in 51 Volumes)”, p.218, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Porter Rockwell was that most terrible instrument that can be handled by fanaticism; a powerful physical nature welded to a mind of very narrow perceptions, intense convictions, and changeless tenacity. In his build he was a gladiator; in his humor a Yankee lumberman; in his memory a Bourbon; in his vengeance an Indian. A strange mixture, only to be found on the American continent

  Fitz Hugh Ludlow

  Memories, Powerful, Yankees

  Fitz Hugh Ludlow (1871). “The Heart of the Continent: A Record of Travel Across the Plains and in Oregon, with an Examination of the Mormon Principle”, p.355

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• Before one can correctly understand the work of the Holy Spirit, he must first of all know the Spirit himself. A frequent source of error and fanaticism about the work of the Holy Spirit is the attempt to study and understand His work without, first of all, coming to know Him as a person.

  R. A. Torrey

  Errors, Religion, Firsts

  R.A TORREY, Rev Terry Kulakowski, Editor “THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT”, Lulu.com

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• The Bible parable says that while men slept, the enemy sowed tares among the wheat. A boy who rises at 4:30 to deliver papers is considered a go-getter, but to urge our young people to rise at 5:30 to pray is considered fanaticism. We must once again wear the harness of discipline. There is no other way.

  Leonard Ravenhill

  Men, Boys, Discipline

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• it is not that religion is merely useless, it is mischievous. It is mischievous by its idle terrors; it is mischievous by its false morality; it is mischievous by its hypocrisy; by its fanaticism; by its dogmatism; by its threats; by its hopes; by its promises.

  Frances Wright

  Hypocrisy, Promise, Useless

  Frances Wright (1850). “A few days in Athens: being the translation of a Greek manuscript discovered in Herculaneum”, p.203

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• Fanatics are, for one thing, boring and, for another, unreliable. They tend to burn out just when you need them.

  Nikki Giovanni

  Needs, Boring, Burn Out

  Nikki Giovanni (1988). “Sacred cows-- and other edibles”, William Morrow & Co

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• It took many years to cleanse Arabia of its “false idols.” It will take many more to cleanse Islam of its new false idols-bigotry and fanaticism-worshipped by those who have replaced Muhammad's original vision of tolerance and unity with their own ideals of hatred and discord. But the cleansing is inevitable, and the tide of reform cannot be stopped. The Islamic Reformation is already here. We are all living in it.

  Reza Aslan

  Islamic, Years, Idols

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• I was raised to be modest to the point of fanaticism. In my family, we don't talk about ourselves to each other. Vanity is considered the worst possible sin. I've gotten better about having to describe things. If you're going to make a record and people are going to write about you, it's your responsibility to answer questions. It's validating - I'm just very clumsy.

  Neko Case

  Writing, Responsibility, People

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• I think about fanaticism - oblivion awaits, especially for minor writers, so you have to be a fanatic; you have to be a crank to keep going, but on the other hand, what else would you do with the rest of your life? You gotta do something.

  Cynthia Ozick

  Thinking, Hands, Rest Of Your Life

  "A life in writing: Cynthia Ozick". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. July 4, 2011.

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• I was standing next to a famed geo-politician when the first news of the Argentine attack [on the Faulkland Islands] was received, and heard him muse incredulously: "An old-fashioned naval battle. A war between two civilized nations, perhaps with even a declaration of war, and later a peace conference. Wow." No hostages, no nukes, no ideologies, no religious fanaticism; just a fair-and-square war over national interests - hard to believe, in this day and age.

  William Safire

  Religious, Peace, War

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• Fanaticism is just one step away from barbarism.

  Denis Diderot

  Steps, Barbarism, Just One

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• The way I see it, there is no greater spiritual beauty than fanaticism, of a sort so sincere it can only end in martyrdom.

  Isabelle Eberhardt

  Spiritual, Way, Sincere

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• The recognition that no knowledge can be complete, no metaphor entire, is itself humanizing. It counteracts fanaticism. It grants even to adversaries the possibility of partial truth, and to oneself the possibility of error.

  Alvin Toffler

  Errors, Recognition, Metaphor

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• In our Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly among the women. They have their night meetings and prayer parties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes by a hen-pecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their love to Jesus, in terms as amatory and carnal, as their modesty would permit them to use a mere earthly lover.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Jesus, Prayer, Husband

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.271, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Education was in danger from the source that always hampered it—religious fanaticism.

  Clarence Darrow

  Education, Religious, Danger

  Clarence Darrow (2012). “Attorney for the Damned: Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom”, p.175, University of Chicago Press

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• There being in the make of an English mind a certain gloom and eagerness, which carries to the sad extreme; religion to fanaticism; free-thinking to atheism; liberty to rebellion.

  George Berkeley

  Sad, Thinking, Mind

  George Berkeley, Alexander Campbell Fraser (1732). “The Works of George Berkeley, D.D., Formerly Bishop of Cloyne: Philosophical works, 1732-33: Alciphron. The theory of vision”, p.142

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