Leo Rosten Quotes

I think my whole deal was I didn't think other people had a right to an opinion. I think the problem I had was, in real life, it was my way or the highway, and if people disagreed with me, then they were just wrong.

Nothing outrages and disappoints an extremist more than compromise.

Claiming that you have got the truth wrapped up does breed violence and intolerance.

A fundamentalist can't bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality.

The less one knows, the more he thinks he knows, and the more willing he is to employ any and all measures to enforce his views upon others.

There is such a thing as fanaticism, it is always wrong, and if you disagree, you're wrong too.

Nothing so obstinately stands in the way of all sorts of progress as pride of opinion. While nothing is so foolish and baseless.

The opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.

One who is too insistent on his own views, finds few to agree with him.

It is not possible to unknow what you do know - the result of that is fanaticism.

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

A mistake made by many people with great convictions is that they will let nothing stand in the way of their views, not even kindness.

The persecuting spirit has its origin... in the assumption that one's own opinions are infallibly correct.

Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.

One thing about liberals: It doesn't even occur to them that there is another side to an argument. They are so convinced of the righteousness of their own position that it doesn't dawn on them that a reasonable person might have a different viewpoint.

Liberals are not always so liberal with people who disapprove - disapprove of their point of view.

It is from a weakness and smallness of mind that men are opinionated; and we are very loath to believe what we are not able to comprehend.

When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.

The enemy of idealism is zealotry.

It's hard to argue with someone that won't argue with you.

Orthodoxy: That peculiar condition where the patient can neither eliminate an old idea nor absorb a new one.

It comes to pass that men do so magnify their own opinions, and are as censorious of any that differ from them in lesser things

With the fundamentalist Islamic fanatics of today, there is no dialogue possible either, because for them all others are “infidel dogs”. As soon as the Other becomes a wrongdoer or an infidel, dialogue becomes impossible.

All political movements are like this — we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies. With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority. There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility.

From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.