Quotes : Fanaticism
"Kill them all, God will recognize his own."
(Arnald Amalric, Papal Legate / 1150-1225/ during the Albigensian Crusade)
""I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortur."
(Daniel J. Boorstin, American historian and author / 1914 - 2004)
"The fundamentalist violence is, so is it, an attempt to increase the stakes, i.e. to discourage the potential desertions by showing that defection will cost them dear, that those who adopt other values will be persecuted or even killed."
(Pascal Boyer / An Man Created God)
"The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not."
(Eric Hoffer / 1902-1983)
"Tolerance and freedom of thought are the veritable antidotes to religious fanaticism."
(Paul-Henri, baron d'Holbach / 1723-1789)
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
(Bertrand Russell / 1872-1970)
"Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim."
(George Santayana / 1863-1952 / The Life of Reason / 1905)
"Theological religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances; it is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind."
(Voltaire / 1694-1778 / Philosophical Dictionary, 1764)