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A fanatic is a person with extreme beliefs and excessive zeal

• Fanatic: A person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal, especially for an extreme religious or political cause.  Oxford Dictionary
• Fanatic: A person who is extremely interested in something, to a degree that some people find unreasonable.  Cambridge Dictionary
• Fanatic:  A person who has very extreme beliefs that may lead them to behave in unreasonable or violent ways.  Cambridge Dictionary
• Fanatic: Marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion.   Merriam Webster
• Belief,  Ideology and dogma,  Religion,  Violence,  Passion,  Closed-mindedness,  Prejudice

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Fanaticism is a form of enslavement of the mind by a belief …

• There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic, the person in whom one impulse, one value, has assumed ascendancy over all others. Milton R. Sapirstein
• As any action or posture long continued will distort and disfigure the limbs; so the mind likewise is crippled and contracted by perpetual application to the same set of ideas. Samuel Johnson
• Slavery

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… causing a kind of madness and mental intoxication

• A fanatic is a nut who has something to believe in. Dean Koontz
• You have to quit confusing a madness with a mission. Flannery O’Connor
• An uncontrolled imagination may become as surely intoxicated by overindulgence as a toper may do bodily with strong drink. Thomas Chandler Haliburton
• The man visited by ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities is an enthusiast; the man who supports his madness with murder is a fanatic. Voltaire
• The worst of madmen is a saint run mad. Alexander Pope
• Insanity

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Fanaticism is a desperate clinging to a belief …

• A fanatic is a nut who has something to believe in. Dean Koontz
• Fanatics do not have faith – they have belief. With faith you let go. You trust. Whereas with belief you cling. Yann Martel
• The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief. And by dangerous I don’t mean thought-provoking. I mean: might get people killed. Sarah Vowell
• I wish there were some cure, like the lover’s leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession. Samuel Johnson
• Belief

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… and an insistence that everyone else should believe the same

• Ah well, I suppose that’s the problem with trying to make others follow your own beliefs: what starts out as spiritual ardor too often becomes arrogance and bigotry. Persia Woolley

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Fanaticism is an overheated mind

• Fanaticism soberly defined, is the false fire of an over heated mind. William Cowper

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Fanaticism is a kind of cool vehemence

• There is such a delusion as evinces itself in cool vehemence; and it is the most dangerous of all expressions of fanaticism. William Benton Clulow
• If you see one cold and vehement at the same time, set him down for a fanatic. Johann Kaspar Lavater

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Fanaticism is knowledge without kindness

• Knowledge, without common sense,’ says Lee, is ‘folly; without method, it is waste; without kindness, it is fanaticism; without religion, it is death.’ But with common sense, it is wisdom with method, it is power; with charity, it is beneficence; with religion, it is virtue, and life, and peace. Austin Farrar
• Knowledge,  Kindness

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Fanaticism is an overcompensation for a secret doubt

• A fanatic is a man who consciously over compensates a secret doubt. Aldous Huxley
• Defined in psychological terms, a fanatic is a man who consciously over-compensates a secret doubt. Aldous Huxley
• Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt. Robertson Davies
• The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately. Bertrand Russell
• The rigidity of one’s religious beliefs diminishes with the presence of faith. Fanatacism is a grasping for order in a mind without peace and without faith.  Earon Davis
• You are never dedicated to something that you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt. Robert M. Pirsig
• Doubt

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Fanaticism is obsessed with the future

• Though fanaticism drinks at many founts, its predisposing cause is mostly the subject of an invisible futurity. Francis Atterbury
• Fanaticism is such an overwhelming impression of the ideas relating to the future world as disqualifies for the duties of life. Robert Hall
• The future

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Fanaticism is always intolerant of those who don’t share its beliefs

• Fanaticism is the child of false zeal and of superstition, the father of intolerance and of persecution. John William Fletcher
• 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. Robert Kennedy
• Tolerance

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Fanaticism always believes in enemies who are to blame for all that is wrong

• 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. John W. Gardner
• The main doctrine of a fanatic’s creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God. Andrew White
• Seriously though, we’ve heard a lot about extremism recently, a nastier harsher atmosphere everywhere, more abuse and bother-boy behavior, less friendliness and tolerance and respect for opponents. Alright, but what we never hear about extremism is it’s advantages! Well. The biggest advantage of extremism is that it makes you feel GOOD because it provides you with enemies. Let me explain. The great thing about having enemies is that you can pretend that all the badness in the whole world is in your enemies, and all the goodness in the whole world is in YOU. Attractive, isn’t it? So, if you have a lot of anger and resentment in you anyway and you therefore enjoy abusing people, then you can pretend that you’re only doing it because these enemies of yours are such very bad persons! And if it wasn’t for them, you’d actually be good natured, and courteous, and rational all the time. So, if you want to FEEL GOOD, become an extremist. You can strut around, abusing people, and telling them you could eat them for breakfast and still think of yourself as a champion of the truth. A fighter for the greater good. And not the rather sad paranoid schizoid that you really are. John Cleese
• Enemies

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Fanaticism tends to be aggressive and often violent

• Fanaticism, or, to call it by its milder name, enthusiasm, is only powerful and active so long as it is aggressive. Establish it firmly in power, and it becomes conservatism, whether it will or no. James Russell Lowell
• Fanatics in power and the funnel of a tornado have this in common – the narrow path in which they move is marked by violence and destruction. Oscar Ostlund
• From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step. Denis Diderot
• Violence

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Fanaticism can do far more harm than any vice

• In the history of mankind, fanaticism has caused more harm than vice. Louis Kronenberger
• The blind fanaticism of one foolish honest man may cause more evil than the united efforts of twenty rogues. Baron Friedrich von Grimm, Friedrich Melchior
• Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity. Edward Gibbon
• Vice

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Fanaticism usually arises out of feelings of neglect, tragedy and and impotence

• I don’t think people by nature are extremists. You will never find a population of extremists. Extremists have existed throughout the centuries on all religions. And what happens is, extremists start to have more leverage when the situation is bad. Queen Rania of Jordan
• The closer a man approaches tragedy the more intense is his concentration of emotion upon the fixed point of his commitment, which is to say the closer he approaches what in life we call fanaticism. Arthur Miller
• Fervor is the weapon of choice of the impotent. Frantz Fanon
• Extremism can flourish only in an environment where basic governmental social responsibility for the welfare of the people is neglected. Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism. Benazir Bhutto

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The problem with the word is that fanatics are so sure of themselves while the wise are full of doubt

• 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
• Whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves, and wiser people are full of doubts. George Bernard Shaw
• Doubt

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Fanatics are hardly ever convinced out of their position by reason and logic

• Of all things, wisdom is the most terrified with epidemical fanaticism, because, of all enemies, it is that against which she is the least able to furnish any kind of resource. Edmund Burke
• 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. Thomas Jefferson
• Reason,  Logic

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You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into

• Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone. Ayn Rand
• The fanatic is incorruptible: if he kills for an idea, he can just as well get himself killed for one; in either case, tyrant or martyr, he is a monster. E. M. Cioran

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Fanaticism cannot be fought with anger and hatred for it glorifies in being persecuted

• Most governments are pragmatic, most people are logical. There are pockets of extremism in Israel, in the U.S. and in the Muslim world. But we have to fight them with reason, with logic and with compassion. Al-Waleed bin Talal
• Painful and corporeal punishments should never be applied to fanaticism; for, being founded on pride, it glories in persecution. Marchese de Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria
• To conquer fanaticism, you must tolerate it; the shuttlecock of religious difference soon falls to the ground when there are no battledoors to beat it backward and forward. Paul Chatfield
• Anger,  Hate

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Fanaticism is often fed by religious belief …

• P. Whipple calls fanaticism “religion caricatured,” which is a full definition in a word. James Parton
• Fanatical religion driven to a certain point is almost as bad as none at all, but not quite. Samuel Johnson
• Fanaticism is an inflamed state of the passions; and nothing that is violent will last long. The vicissitudes of the world and the business of life are admirably adapted to abate the excesses of religious enthusiasm. Robert Hall
• I don’t think the 9/11 attacks taught us anything we didn’t already know about religion. It has long been obvious – even to the deeply religious – that religious fanaticism is an extremely dangerous deranger of otherwise sane and goodhearted people. Daniel Dennett
• In morals what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil. Anna Jameson
• Religious conflict can be the bloodiest and cruellest conflicts that turn people into fanatics. William J. Brennan
• The take-home message is that we should blame religion itself, not religious extremism – as though that were some kind of terrible perversion of real, decent religion. Voltaire got it right long ago: ‘Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.’ So did Bertrand Russell: ‘Many people would sooner die than think. In fact, they do. Richard Dawkins
• There is no doubt that religious fanatics have done more to prejudice the cause they affect to advocate than have its opponents. Hosea Ballou
• Time and again we see leaders and members of religions incite aggression, fanaticism, hate, and xenophobia – even inspire and legitimate violent and bloody conflicts. Hans Kung
• Religion,  Dogma

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… although some argue fanaticism is more about power than religion …

• Fundamentalism isn’t about religion, it’s about power. Salman Rushdie
• Power

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… and that atheism can be as fanatical as any religion

• Atheism is a religion itself complete with fanatics and bigots. Vanna Bonta
• Atheism

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Fanaticism just about always believes it has God firmly on its side

• A fanatic is a man that does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case.  Finley Peter Dunne
• The main doctrine of a fanatic’s creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God. Andrew White
• The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism. Reinhold Niebuhr
• There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to God. The victim of the fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance for obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value in proportion as it is affected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity. Charles Caleb Colton
• God

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Religious fanaticism almost always takes scripture out of context or too literally

• Some extremists take elements of the sacred scriptures out of context. Cat Stevens
• Religious fanatics want people to switch off their own minds, ignore the evidence, and blindly follow a holy book based upon private ‘revelation’. Richard Dawkins
• Extremists often derive their inspiration from literal interpretations of texts that should rightly be read not as Associated Press reports from the ancient world, but as theological and literary enterprises requiring independent intellectual assessment. Jon Meacham

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Fanaticism uses faith as an excuse for its actions

• A faith-holder puts himself below his faith and lets it guide his actions. The fanatic puts himself above it and uses it as an excuse for his actions. Gordon R. Dickson

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Fanaticism exists everywhere and is never confined to just one religion

• It is dangerous when you start calling people from one part of the world terrorists or fanatic, and you reduce them to some abstract notion. If evil has a geographical place, and if the evil has a name, that is the beginning of fascism. Real life is not this way. You have fanatics and narrow-minded people everywhere. Marjane Satrapi
• The Muslim world is threatened by religious fanaticism. The Western world is threatened by secular fanaticism. Dennis Prager
• There are a lot of Christian fundamentalists; there are a lot of Muslim extremists. Every religion – Mormonism – has something way on the side that’s completely using the religion as some weird backbone for their twisted faith. It has nothing to do with their religion. Patrick Wilson
• You’re always going to have extremists in every religion. King Abdullah II

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All fanaticism is false because truth cannot be shut up in a single book

• All fanaticism is false, because it is a contradiction of the very nature of God and of Truth. Truth cannot be shut up in a single book, Bible or Veda or Koran, or in a single religion. The Divine Being is eternal and universal and infinite and cannot be the sole property of the Mussulmans or of the Semitic religions only, – those that happened to be in a line from the Bible and to have Jewish or Arabian prophets for their founders. Sri Aurobindo
• Truth

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A truth followed too fervently and blindly at the expense of all else becomes a falsehood

• If you pick a truth and follow it blindly, it becomes a falsehood, and you a fanatic.
• Wisdom becomes nonsense in the mouth of a fanatic. Otto Schuwdrmer
• Illusion

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Some paint a less disturbing picture of extremism

• I would rather have a competent extremist than an incompetent moderate. Leon Jaworski
• The downright fanatic is nearer to the heart of things than the cool and slippery disputant. Edwin Hubbel Chapin
• There is no strong performance without a little fanaticism in the performer. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• 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. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Some argue that extremism in defence of liberty is justified so long as it doesn’t endanger liberty

• Extremism in defence of liberty is not a vice, but I denounce political extremism, of the left or the right, based on duplicity, falsehood, fear, violence and threats when they endanger liberty. George W. Romney
• Extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Barry Goldwater
• Freedom

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Some argue that extremism in dealing with social ills is justified

• One cannot be too extreme in dealing with social ills; the extreme thing is generally the true thing. Emma Goldman

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Others argue that fanaticism and extremism is never justified in any area

• Mere human beings can’t afford to be fanatical about anything. Not even about justice or loyalty. The fanatic for justice ends by murdering a million helpless people to clear a space for his law-courts. If we are to survive on this planet, there must be compromises. Storm Jameson

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Fanaticism would do well to realise that virtue and wisdom exists in the mean; not the extreme

• It is the nature of men having escaped one extreme, which by force they were constrained long to endure, to run headlong into the other extreme, forgetting that virtue doth always consist in the mean. Sir Walter Raleigh
• Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong. Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Virtue,  Wisdom

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The best way to tackle fanaticism is to improve people’s standards of living

• Unless man in the midst of all his modernism finds a middle ground upon which to adjust his differences, there can be no mutual progress, human liberty is sacrificed and talent and freewill suffer. Improvement of the standards of living of the whole people is paramount, if civilization is to escape world fanaticism. Arnold W. Craft
• Poverty

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The opposite of the fanatic is the gentle cynic

• 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

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• A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism. Carl Sagan
• A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. Winston Churchill
• Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim. George Santayana
• Death to all fanatics!
• A fanatic is a man that does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case.  Finley Peter Dunne
• A fanatic is one who sticks to his guns whether they’re loaded or not.  Franklin Jones
• Fanatic: A man who does what God would do – if He only had the facts straight.
• Fanatic: One who having lost sight of his goal redoubles his efforts.
• Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.  George Bernard Shaw

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