A celibate clergy is an especially good idea because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
Moderation is a wiser policy than zealotry
The enemy of idealism is zealotry.
Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.
Fundamentalism isn't about religion it's about power.
Today's zealots are mostly those pretending to be anti-religious.
From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.
The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief.
It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.
Anyone who says he knows God's intention is showing a lot of very human ego.
Pit race against race religion against religion prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.
Let eloquence be flung to the dogs rather than souls be lost. What we want is to win souls. They are not won by flowery speeches.
The dangerous man is the one who has only one idea because then he'll fight and die for it.[As quoted in The New Yorker April 25 2011]
You see it doesn't matter if they're wrong. From 9/11 to recent shootings here in the United States there's nothing more dangerous than a true believer on his own crazy mission.
Conversion and zealotry just like revelation and apostasy are flip sides of the same coin the currency of a political culture having more in common with religion than rational discourse.
What does it matter to the dead the orphans and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors interpreting them as facts then you are in trouble.
Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed.
Give a man with a death wish a bottle of whisky and a loaded gun you get a dead body. Give a martyr a quote from scripture and a pocket full ofprayers and you get a room full of corpses.
We shouldn't let anti-science zealotry shut down the ability to produce low-cost quality food for billions across the globe.