Best 81 quotes in «extremism quotes» category

No one can pretend that because a people may be oppressed, every individual member is virtuous and worthy.

Now is as good a time as ever to revisit the history of the Crusades, or the sorry history of partition in Kashmir, or the woes of the Chechens and Kosovars. But the bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face, and there's no point in any euphemism about it. What they abominate about 'the West,' to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state. Loose talk about chickens coming home to roost is the moral equivalent of the hateful garbage emitted by Falwell and Robertson, and exhibits about the same intellectual content.

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched." [My Uncle Sosthenes]

Our values were under attacks, in Paris Tell them: We stand UNITED We'll defend our values We'll NOT be DIVIDED

particular rootlessness of the society had always lent itself to powerful extremes of both the left and the right, there was, in the volatility and evanescence of the culture an atmosphere ripe for extremism, each side with its own Utopian dreams, each side driving the other to a more polarized position.

Religion must bring oneness, otherwise it’s not religion.

Psychological research has shown that prejudice adversely affects both the targets and perpetrators. Does it make sense then to enter a losing battle, one which you come out of in the end a battered and bruised loser?

The best path is to have no path.

Socialism, communism, and fascism are the political manifestations of unachievable ideals, carried to genocidal extremes.

The best way to avoid a catastrophic conflict of beliefs is to be more compassionate about other people’s beliefs as long as they do not advocate for prejudices, bigotry and sectarianism.

Now what religion has never had sects? Rest assured, Extremism is always the derrière.

The common Muslims have nothing to do with the acts of terrorism caused by the so-called Islamic extremists - they are as concerned of their children's safety in a world affected by terrorism, religious or otherwise, as any other person from other religious backgrounds.

The fact is that in any open society people constantly say things that other people don’t like. It’s completely normal that should happen. And in any confident, free society you just shrug it off and you proceed. There is no way of creating a free society where nobody says anything that others don’t like. If offendness is the point at which you have to limit your thoughts then nothing can be said. There might be people who might be offended by various kinds of literature. I myself, I am not very fond of, let me not mention Chetan Bhagat, I wasn't going to say that, so I have not. And yet, I believe such writer have a right to publish, and of course to live. The point is behind these ideas of offendness and respect there is always the threat of violence. Always the threat is if you do that which disrespect or offends me I will be violent to you and so the real subject is not religion, its violence.

The dangerous enemies of your species are fundamentalism, intolerance, separatism, extremism, hostility and prejudicial fear, be it religious, atheistic or political.

The fans are always more radical than that which they are fans.

The foundation of morality on the human sentiments of what is acceptable behavior versus repulsive behavior has always made morals susceptible to change. Much of what was repulsive 100 years ago is normal today, and - although it may be a slippery slope - what is repulsive today is possible to be normal 100 years into tomorrow; the human standard has always been but to push the envelope. In this way, all generations are linked, and one can only hope that every extremist, self-proclaimed progressive is considering this ultimate 'Utopia' to which his kindness will lead at the end of the chain.

The four greatest threats to humanity are fundamentalism, nationalism, transhumanism and democracy.

The free world cannot afford to accept any form of extremism, whether it is fascism, racism or religious extremism.

The problem is not just liberal extremism or conservative extremism. The problem is extremism.

The Islamic State’s ideology exerts powerful sway over a certain subset of the population. Life’s hypocrisies and inconsistencies vanish in its face. Musa Cerantonio and the Salafis I met in London are unstumpable: No question I posed left them stuttering. They lectured me garrulously and, if one accepts their premises, convincingly. To call them un-Islamic appears, to me, to invite them into an argument that they would win. If they had been froth-spewing maniacs, I might be able to predict that their movement would burn out as the psychopaths detonated themselves or became drone-splats, one by one. But these men spoke with an academic precision that put me in mind of a good graduate seminar. I even enjoyed their company, and that frightened me as much as anything else.

The politics of the possible was being replaced by the politics of purity.

There is a new type of discrimination, directed at people born in a time when total freedom of speech was valued, respected, and celebrated. Now these people are labelled as bigots, and monsters, and this discrimination, advocated and promoted by social justice warriors, is as severe and negative as racism, and sexism, and in many cases, worse in its extreme.

Those who use prejudice and hate as a foundation to make their cases have no merit. It is only when these feelings are set aside that we can think clearly and productively.

There's always that one group of people who think they have special permission to terrorize anybody who disagrees with them. And then everybody who looks like them suffers.

There's no evidence from decades of Pew Research surveys that public opinion, in the aggregate, is more extreme now than in the past. But what has changed -- and pretty dramatically -- is the growing tendency of people to sort themselves into political parties based on their ideological differences.

The trouble with all these far-right and far-left mentalities is that they can encompass only one side of an argument and are congenitally incapable of holding two opinions in their heads at the same time.

The truth, however, is that most Muslims appear to be "fundamental- ist" in the Western sense of the word—in that even "moderate" approaches to Islam generally consider the Koran to be the literal and inerrant word of the one true God. The difference between funda- mentalists and moderates—and certainly the difference between all "extremists" and moderates—is the degree to which they see political and military action to be intrinsic to the practice of their faith. In any case, people who believe that Islam must inform every dimension of human existence, including politics and law, are now generally called not "fundamentalists" or "extremists" but, rather, "Islamists.

They hate us because we don't even know why they hate us.

This division is not one by religious affiliation, rather it separates the extremists and the peace-loving people. Therefor I'm optimistic: now a humanistic Islam is getting shaken awake. Moderate Islam needs now to finally break cover and explain how to deal with the violence-glorifying parts of the Quran. The (psychological) repression that this has nothing to do with our belief doesn't work anymore. We have to face this challenge.

Thoughts and ideas cannot be criminalized but when they are used to groom and entice aggression to where beliefs turn into bullets then labels become of utmost importance.

To reform a religion, one must at first be able to recognize the follies of that religion, then only one can take necessary steps to discard those flaws. If your son has a drug addiction, you need to first recognize the fact that he is addicted to drugs, then you can take action to send him for rehab. Likewise, in order reform a religion’s historical habit of beating wives and using violence on people from other religions, you must first be conscientious enough to accept the fact, that, that specific religion has a history replete with violence, then you can take measures to mend the cultural mindset of that religion.

Truth is not fully explosive, but purely electric. You don't blow the world up with the truth; you shock it into motion.

While he loved liberty, he detested the crimes that had been committed in its name. Jon J. Ingalls

Virulence is the sound of a self-selecting community talking to itself and positively reinforcing itself with no obligation to answer to anyone or look anyone in the eye.

The South, which is peopled with ardent and irascible beings, is becoming more irritated and alarmed.

You know,” said Jehangir, breaking the silence, “it's only Muslims who use the term 'innovation' to mean something bad.

Were people to mingle only with those of like mind, every man would be an insulate being." Thomas Jefferson

All extreme opinions consume themselves.

I believe in copyright, but I don't believe in copyright extremism.

Radicalism and extremism, while they are dangers, they exist in every society on some level.

We are confronted by another oppressive ideology - one that seeks to export terrorism and extremism all around the globe. America and Europe have suffered one terror attack after another. We're going to get it to stop.

Extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

A good practice carried to an extreme and worked in accordance with the letter of the law becomes a positive evil.

Centuries have passed since the wars of religion ceased in Europe, and since men stopped dying in large numbers because of arcane theological disputes. Hence, perhaps, the incredulity and denial with which Westerners have greeted news of the theology and practices of the Islamic State. Many refuse to believe that this group is as devout as it claims to be, or as backward-looking or apocalyptic as its actions and statements suggest. "Their skepticism is comprehensible. In the past, Westerners who accused Muslims of blindly following ancient scriptures came to deserved grief from academics—notably the late Edward Said—who pointed out that calling Muslims 'ancient' was usually just another way to denigrate them. Look instead, these scholars urged, to the conditions in which these ideologies arose—the bad governance, the shifting social mores, the humiliation of living in lands valued only for their oil. "Without acknowledgment of these factors, no explanation of the rise of the Islamic State could be complete. But focusing on them to the exclusion of ideology reflects another kind of Western bias: that if religious ideology doesn’t matter much in Washington or Berlin, surely it must be equally irrelevant in Raqqa or Mosul. When a masked executioner says Allahu akbar while beheading an apostate, sometimes he’s doing so for religious reasons.

An airplane should never lean too much to the left or the right, because it puts every passenger into a panic and fear. Politics are much the same. Better to be balanced on both sides than to fly on a crazy angle.

Anti-government rhetoric appears to offer a vision of greater efficiency, self-reliance, and personal freedom. (For obvious reasons, it also usually enjoys greater financial backing and better organized support.) Unfortunately, this rhetoric ignores what has historically been most valuable about our skepticism toward government—the emphasis it places on personal responsibility from all citizens. Instead, it argues against the excesses of government but not against those of the marketplace, where there is great power to disrupt the lives of workers, families, and communities. It even argues against the basic protections government extends to the well-being of individuals, families, and communities, without offering an alternative way of safeguarding them. In fact, its extreme case against government, often including intense personal attacks on government officials and political leaders, is designed not just to restrain government but to advance narrow religious, political, and economic agendas.

But what is it that drives haters crazy with rage? Many times, it's being ignored. To a person with pride, being ignored is often worse than out-and-out hate; it's that much more of an insult, that you're not even worth noticing.

Dependency on drugs is quite easily proclaimed by the so-called intellectual society as lethal, while that very society has been ever-lastingly dependent upon varied forms of ideologies, be it religious, atheistic, political or any other. They say, “don’t do drugs for it’s dangerous for you”, but they never say, “don’t do ideology for it’s dangerous for your society”.

- Din hjärna har skrumpnat av energi- och fettbrist, sa John. Jag sa från början åt dig att vishet är att veta när man ska sluta gå i tangentens riktning. Vid en viss punkt blir det godas riktning ond. Det gäller att veta var, och stanna. Men det kräver självständighet och att man inte är rädd för att kallas avfälling, ideologiskt svag och medlöpare.

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.