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Zealotry Quotes

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Zealotry Quotes

“Extremism stifles true progression in all fields of human advancement; it is a detriment to everything but war, tribalism and the personal power of Nietzschean entities, striving only for the narcissistic vindication of their ego and will. The enlightened mind knows that all is challengeable, ergo questions all and thus, learns and grows; progression. The weak and narrow mind makes its beliefs sacrosanct; fearful of challenge, their creed becomes unalterable, defended with violence. Political extremists, much like religious zealots, are the latter. They destroy what they cannot convert. They annihilate those they cannot control, or force to conform. They have found no peace in life, no love, and so promote war and division, as emotional cripples – inflicting their own pain and misery and malignant stupidity on the world. Their language binds people together, but only by stirring the darkest excesses of the soul; language of hate, and intolerance, fear and conspiracy, and the need for vengeance. In war-scarred Europe, these cripples direct mass-psychology, and would make the world in their own likeness; mutilated by violence and tribalism and hate.”

LiesTerrorismPropagandaManipulationAdvancementExtremismProgressionTribalismZealotryPolitical LanguagePolitical ExtremismJackboot BritainZealotsJackbootSacrosanctManipulation Of FactsSocial Indoctrination
Book:Jackboot Britain
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“Long before it was known to me as a place where my ancestry was even remotely involved, the idea of a state for Jews (or a Jewish state; not quite the same thing, as I failed at first to see) had been 'sold' to me as an essentially secular and democratic one. The idea was a haven for the persecuted and the survivors, a democracy in a region where the idea was poorly understood, and a place where—as Philip Roth had put it in a one-handed novel that I read when I was about nineteen—even the traffic cops and soldiers were Jews. This, like the other emphases of that novel, I could grasp. Indeed, my first visit was sponsored by a group in London called the Friends of Israel. They offered to pay my expenses, that is, if on my return I would come and speak to one of their meetings. I still haven't submitted that expenses claim. The misgivings I had were of two types, both of them ineradicable. The first and the simplest was the encounter with everyday injustice: by all means the traffic cops were Jews but so, it turned out, were the colonists and ethnic cleansers and even the torturers. It was Jewish leftist friends who insisted that I go and see towns and villages under occupation, and sit down with Palestinian Arabs who were living under house arrest—if they were lucky—or who were squatting in the ruins of their demolished homes if they were less fortunate. In Ramallah I spent the day with the beguiling Raimonda Tawil, confined to her home for committing no known crime save that of expressing her opinions. (For some reason, what I most remember is a sudden exclamation from her very restrained and respectable husband, a manager of the local bank: 'I would prefer living under a Bedouin muktar to another day of Israeli rule!' He had obviously spent some time thinking about the most revolting possible Arab alternative.) In Jerusalem I visited the Tutungi family, who could produce title deeds going back generations but who were being evicted from their apartment in the old city to make way for an expansion of the Jewish quarter. Jerusalem: that place of blood since remote antiquity. Jerusalem, over which the British and French and Russians had fought a foul war in the Crimea, and in the mid-nineteenth century, on the matter of which Christian Church could command the keys to some 'holy sepulcher.' Jerusalem, where the anti-Semite Balfour had tried to bribe the Jews with the territory of another people in order to seduce them from Bolshevism and continue the diplomacy of the Great War. Jerusalem: that pest-house in whose environs all zealots hope that an even greater and final war can be provoked. It certainly made a warped appeal to my sense of history.”

WarChristianityHistoryDemocracyIsraelLondonRussiaOppressionFranceTortureBritainTerritoryWorld War IFree SpeechColonialismPersecutionPalestineDiplomacySecularismFanaticism19th CenturyAncestryJerusalemReligious ExtremismEthnic CleansingJewsArmageddonLeftismAntisemitismBolshevismCrimeaPalestiniansArabsZealotryHouse ArrestPhilip RothBedouinCrimean WarRamallahArthur BalfourRaimonda Tawil
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“Men speak of God’s love for man… but if providence does not come in this hour, where is He then? My conclusion is simple. The Semitic texts from Bronze Age Palestine of which Christianity is comprised still fit uncomfortably well with contemporary life. The Old Testament depicts a God capricious and cruel; blood sacrifice, vengeance, genocide; death and destruction et al. Would He not approve of Herr Hitler and the brutal, tribalistic crusade against Hebrews and non-Christian ‘untermensch?’ One thing is inarguable. His church on Earth has produced some of the most vigorous and violent contribution to the European fascist cause. It is synergy. Man Created God, even if God Created Man; it all exists in the hubris and apotheosis of the narcissistic soul, and alas, all too many of the human herd are willing to follow the beastly trait of leadership. The idea of self-emancipation and advancement, with Europe under the jackboot of fascism, would be Quixotic to the point of mirthless lunacy.”

GodReligionReligiousChristianityFascismVengeanceItalyCatholic ChurchRight WingOld TestamentEmancipationCrusadesHitlerNietzscheFrancoVengefulSpanish Civil WarZealotryVaticanMussoliniApotheosisBonhoefferJackboot BritainZealotsJackbootVatican CityCatholic Church Nazi GermanyOld Testament GodNazis And The ChurchBronze Age PalestineCatholic FascismChurch HitlerChurch Right WingExtreme RightFascism And The ChurchGod VengeanceThe CrusadesTribalistic
Book:Jackboot Britain
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“This war is being fought between fanatics convinced that their ends sanctify all means, and everyone else - all those who hold that life is an end and not a means. It is a struggle between people who believe that justice, whatever that term may mean to them, is more important than life, and those who maintain that life takes precedence over other values.”

LifeWarViolenceModerationExtremismFanaticismZealotryDear ZealotsHow To Cure A Fanatic
Book:שלום לקנאים
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“During the Bosnian war in the late 1990s, I spent several days traveling around the country with Susan Sontag and her son, my dear friend David Rieff. On one occasion, we made a special detour to the town of Zenica, where there was reported to be a serious infiltration of outside Muslim extremists: a charge that was often used to slander the Bosnian government of the time. We found very little evidence of that, but the community itself was much riven as between Muslim, Croat, and Serb. No faction was strong enough to predominate, each was strong enough to veto the other's candidate for the chairmanship of the city council. Eventually, and in a way that was characteristically Bosnian, all three parties called on one of the town's few Jews and asked him to assume the job. We called on him, and found that he was also the resident intellectual, with a natural gift for synthesizing matters. After we left him, Susan began to chortle in the car. 'What do you think?' she asked. 'Do you think that the only dentist and the only shrink in Zenica are Jewish also?' It would be dense to have pretended not to see her joke.”

ReligionHumourExtremismReligious ExtremismJewsMuslimsBosniaIntellectualsBosnian WarZealotry1990sCroatsSerbsIslamic ExtremismDavid RieffCity CouncilsSontagZenica
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“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.”

BeliefDangerTerrorMissionsTerrorismWarfareFundamentalismConspiracy TheoryConspiracy TheoriesRadicalismTerroristsConspiraciesZealotryRadicalsFundamentalistsDangerous MindsZealotsTrue BelieversConspiracistsTrue Belief
Book:History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time
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“More and more commonly, the strongest public sentiment is one of profound loathing - subversive loathing of 'the hegemonic discourse,' Western loathing of the East, Eastern loathing of the West, secular loathing of believers, religious loathing of the secular. Sweeping, unmitigated loathing surges like vomit from the depths of this or that misery. Such extreme loathing is a component of fanaticism in all its guises.”

HateExtremismFanaticismLoathingAuthoritarianismZealotryDear Zealots
Book:שלום לקנאים
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“The intellectual ... may live for ideas, as I have said, but something must prevent him from living for one idea, from becoming obsessive or grotesque. Although there have been zealots whom we may still regard as intellectuals, zealotry is a defect of the breed and not of the essence.”

MayHas BeensSaidStillsIdeasBecomingIntellectualEssenceRegardDefectsObsessiveGrotesqueZealotZealotry
Book:Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
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“Pat Buchanan... was fired by MSNBC for doing nothing more than voicing his rock-solid conservative thoughts on the otherwise failing network... The real message of the left is intolerance, zealotry, bigotry and hate. The left has no use for the First Amendment or the rest of the Constitution unless it fits their multicultural, euro-socialist agenda, which is failing all across Europe and everywhere it is practiced.”

FirstsRealUseHateLeftFailingRocksFitMessagesEuropeConstitutionConservativeAgendasBigotryAmendmentsIntoleranceSocialistDoing NothingFirst AmendmentEuroMulticulturalZealotry
Author:Ted Nugent
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“The gun-control crusade today is like the Prohibition crusade 100 years ago. It is a shared zealotry that binds the self-righteous know-it-alls in a warm fellowship of those who see themselves as fighting on the side of the angels against the forces of evil. It is a lofty role that they are not about to give up for anything so mundane as facts - or even the lives of other people.”

PeopleKnowsGivingYearsSelfFactsTodayFightingEvilForceSidesRolesGiving UpGunAngelYears AgoWarmRighteousGun ControlFellowshipMundaneLoftyProhibitionLives Of OthersCrusadesSelf RighteousKnow It AllFighting OnZealotry
Author:Thomas Sowell
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“It's common to think things will never happen where you are-never in Cambridge, never in New York, never in Seattle-that sort of thing, whatever it is, never happens here, not in our community. Then it happens, right in front of you, and you realize you were blind to it, that you forgot that intolerance and zealotry and viciousness are human currency everywhere, and it takes your breath away.”

ThinkingHumansHappensRealizingCommunityCommonFrontsNew YorkBreathsBlindWhere You AreIntoleranceCurrencyOur CommunitySeattleCambridgeZealotry
Author:Mike Daisey
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“I must say that when I first learned of the existence of the Australian Greenhouse Office, I assumed it was responsible for supplying tomatoes to the Parliament House kitchen. But, no, as I soon learnt as industry minister, it was in fact a government funded redoubt of veritable soldiers in a war against carbon dioxide. The zealotry and obsessive passion of these warriors in the battle against the apparent evils of carbon dioxide remains a curiosity to me. After fighting these people for three years as industry minister, I really did wish they would just go away and grow tomatoes.”

PeopleYearsFirstsWarFactsGovernmentFightingPassionThreeEvilHouseWishGrowsExistenceIndustryBattleOfficeResponsibleRemainsCuriositySoldierWarriorMinistersKitchenGoing AwayThree YearsCarbonParliamentAustralianObsessiveTomatoesGreenhousesCarbon DioxideZealotry
Author:Nick Minchin
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“There's nothing more dangerous than a resourceful idiot.”

DangerousDangerIdiotDoomedDangerous ThingsResourcefulResourcefulnessDilbertClosed MindZealotryClosed Minded
Book:Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Explains Cloning, Blouse Monsters, Voting Machines, Romance, Monkey G ods, How to Avoid Being Mistaken for a Rodent, and More
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“We humans are naturally disposed to worship gods and heroes, to build our pantheons and valhallas. I would rather see that impulse directed into the adoration of daft singers, thicko footballers and air-headed screen actors than into the veneration of dogmatic zealots, fanatical preachers, militant politicians and rabid cultural commentators.”

HumansActorsAirHeroPoliticianWorshipScreensSingersImpulsePreacherAdorationFootballerCommentatorsMilitantWorship GodDogmaticVenerationZealotDaftPantheonZealotryValhalla
Author:Stephen Fry
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“The nobility of the human spirit grows harder for me to believe in. War, zealotry, greed, malls, narcissism. I see a backhanded nobility in excessive, impractical outlays of cash prompted by nothing loftier than a species joining hands and saying “I bet we can do this.” Yes, the money could be better spent on Earth. But would it? Since when has money saved by government red-lining been spent on education and cancer research? It is always squandered. Let’s squander some on Mars. Let’s go out and play.”

BelieveHumansWarPlayHandsGovernmentEarthSpiritGrowsCan DoResearchRedHarderSpeciesGreedCancerSavedCashNarcissismMarsHuman SpiritNobilityJoiningMallsZealotryCancer ResearchJoining Hands
Book:Packing for Mars
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“Legal ethics is a misnomer ... lawyers conducting themselves legally are not necessarily conducting themselves morally ."...and ..."The zero sum nature of the legal system, combined with the universal adoption of zealotry as the marching orders of practioners and prosecutors, transforms the moral mission of the legal system from one of truth-seeking, storytelling, and justice, to one of fabrication, distortion, and manipulation in pursuit of victory. These victories, however, make us all losers.”

OrderJusticeMoralVictoryEthicsUniversalSeekingMissionsLawyerPursuitStorytellingManipulationZeroLoserAdoptionDistortionConductingLegal SystemProsecutorFabricationZealotryLegal Ethics
Author:Thane Rosenbaum
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