#Extremism Quotes

“All empty souls tend to extreme opinion. It is only in those who have built up a rich world of memories and habits of thought that extreme opinions affront the sense of probability. Propositions, for instance, which set all the truth upon one side can only enter rich minds to dislocate and strain, if they can enter at all, and sooner or later the mind expels them by instinct.”

“We are proud of a human nature that could be so passionately extreme, but we shrink from advising others to follow the example.”

“Many bad policies are simply good policies taken too far.”

“In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.”

“We can just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an extreme individualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism.”

“It is a great mistake to think that the extremist is a better man than the moderate. Usually the difference is not that he is morally stronger, but that he is intellectually weaker. He is not more virtuous. He is simply more foolish.”

“Just as Lincoln got contradictory advice from the extremists of both sides . . . so now I have to guard myself against the extremists of both sides.”

“In every community there are little knots of fantastic extremists who loudly proclaim that they are striving for righteousness, and who, in reality, do their feeble best for unrighteousness. Just as the upright politician should hold in peculiar scorn the man who makes the name of politician a reproach and a shame, so the genuine reformer should realize that the cause he champions is especially jeopardized by the mock reformer who does what he can to make reform a laughingstock among decent men.”

“I am a man who believes with all fervor and intensity in moderate progress. Too often men who believe in moderation believe in it only moderately and tepidly and leave fervor to the extremists of the two sides - the extremists of reaction and the extremists of progress. Washington, Lincoln . . . are men who, to my mind, stand as the types of what wide, progressive leadership should be.”

“Environmental extremists ... wouldn't let you build a house unless it looked like a bird's nest.”

“Extremists on all sides thrive, fed by the blood lust of centuries gone by.”

“Perhaps...the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”

“Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?”

“Temperate temperance is best; intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance.”

“No one who isn't an extremist can understand the mind of an extremist.”

“The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”

“The radical hostility, the deadly hostility against sensuality, is always a symptom to reflect on: it entitles us to suppositions concerning the total state of one who is excessive in this manner.”

“I will be happy to give my life to see some of these white devils die.”

“If we are extremists, then we are not ashamed of it, for the conditions that our people suffer are extreme, and extreme illness can not be cured with moderate medicine”

“You're living at a time of extremism, a time of revolutionA time where there's got to be a change. People in power have misused itAnd now there has to be a change and a better world has to be builtAnd the only way is going to be built is with extreme methodsAnd I for one will join with anyone, don't care what color you areAs long as you want change this miserable condition that exists on this earth”

“I don't believe in any form of unjustified extremism! But when a man is exercising extremism -- a human being is exercising extremism -- in defense of liberty for human beings it's no vice, and when one is moderate in the pursuit of justice for human beings I say he is a sinner.”

“I think the only way one can really determine whether extremism in the defense of liberty is justified, is not to approach it as an american or a european or an African or an Asian, but as a human being. If we look upon it as different types, immediately we begin to think in terms of extremism being good for one and bad for another, or bad for one and good for another. But if we look upon it, if we look upon ourselves as human beings, I doubt that anyone will deny that extremism in defense of liberty, the liberty of any human being, is no vice.”

“Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones but by extreme positions of the opposite kind.”

“We don't have to let extremists define us.”

“The lunatic fringe wags the underdog.”

“It is a wearisome disease to preserve health by too strict a regimen.”

“The food crank is by definition a person willing to cut himself off from human society in the hopes of adding five years onto the life of his carcase; that is, a person out of touch with common humanity.”

“I always disagree, however, when people end up saying that we can only combat Communism, Fascism or what not if we develop an equal fanaticism. It appears to me that one defeats the fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one's intelligence.”

“To safeguard one's health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness, indeed.”

“We have not confronted forcefully enough the intolerance, sectarianism, and hopelessness that feeds violent extremism in too many parts of the globe.”

“I think in many ways narrow minded-attitudes lead to extreme thinking.”

“When Jerry Springer thinks you've gone too far, my friends, you have gone too far.”

“Mankind suffers from two excesses: to exclude reason, and to live by nothing but reason.”

“Extremism is so easy. You've got your position, and that's it. It doesn't take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left.”

“Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.”

“To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend – because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America. That is why I have ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and will seek swift and certain justice for captured terrorists – because living our values doesn't make us weaker, it makes us safer and it makes us stronger.”

“Thinking too little about things or thinking too much both make us obstinate and fanatical.”

“When people are oppressed, and human rights are denied - particularly along sectarian lines or ethnic lines - when dissent is silenced, it feeds violent extremism, it creates an environment that is ripe for terrorists to exploit. When peaceful, democratic change is impossible, it feeds into the terrorist propaganda that violence is the only answer available.”

“There are two equally dangerous extremes-to shut reason out, and to let nothing else in.”

“To abandon oneself to principles is really to die - and to die for an impossible love which is the contrary of love.”

“Absolute virtue is impossible and the republic of forgiveness leads, with implacable logic, to the republic of the guillotine.”