Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves. The more untenable their position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do to support it.

A fanatic is a man that does what he thinks th' Lord wud do if He knew th' facts iv th' case.

There is no doubt that religious fanatics have done more to prejudice the cause they affect to advocate than have its opponents.

There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic, the person in whom one impulse, one value, has assumed ascendency over all others.

Belief in a Divine mission is one of the many forms of certainty that have afflicted the human race.

When you've got a Chautauqua in your head, it's extremely hard not to inflict it on innocent people.

There is no place in a fanatic's head where reason can enter.

The true inquisitor is a creature of policy, not a man of blood by taste.

There is no arguing with the pretenders to a divine knowledge and to a divine mission. They are possessed with the sin of pride, they have yielded to the perennial temptation.

What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.

A religious fanatic is somebody who knows Jesus Christ better than you do.

It is easier to tame a fanatic than to put life into a corpse.

Fanatics have their dreams, where-with they weave A paradise for a sect.

If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea.

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all.

There is no strong performance without a little fanaticism in the performer.

An infallible method of making fanatics is to persuade before you instruct.

He that rides his hobby gently must always give way to him that rides his hobby hard.