There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves. What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice. The worst vice of a fanatic is his sincerity. 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. There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic, the person in whom one impulse, one value, has assumed ascendancy over all others. 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. 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. 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 effected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity. Truth is like the stars; it does not appear except from behind obscurity of the night. Truth is like all beautiful things in the world; it does not disclose its desirability except to those who first feel the influence of falsehood. Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
George Gordon Byron
Albert Einstein
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Ostlund
Milton R. Sapirstein
Rmile.M.Cioran
Samuel Johnson
Charles Caleb Colton
Khalil GIbran
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