Thomas Merton Quotes

It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.

Those who believe that they have absolute truth and the only moral system are destructive both to themselves and to those whom they try to convert.

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

I'm intrigued by fanatics - people who are seduced by the promise, or the illusion, of the absolute.

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

The belief that there is only one truth, and that oneself is in possession of it, is the root of all evil in the world.

I don't think any extremism is rational.

One of the most constant characteristics of beliefs is their intolerance. The stronger the belief, the greater its intolerance. Men dominated by a certitude cannot tolerate those who do not accept it.

Terror … is often the result of giving politics a sacred, absolute dimension.

I desire what is good. Therefore, everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor.

The problem with absolutist beliefs that they can get you into traps in which the ends justify the means.

Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do things that were directly inconsistent with their own beliefs in order to maintain that what they said was true.

In our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds -- that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.

Fundamentalists are crazy. They're the real world equivalent to the evil geniuses of our spy fiction and our superhero comics. They want to mold the world into a specific shape that they really believe in, and if you don't believe in that, if you can't relate to that, it just seems crazy.

A mark of stupidity is a belief that one party is totally virtuous and correct on the issues while the other is evil and always wrong.

Sincerity that thinks it is the sole possessor of the truth is a deadlier sin than hypocrisy, which knows better.

We are all capable of becoming fundamentalists because we get addicted to other people's wrongness.

Faith was intended precisely for the simple, but the quest for certainty and simplicity becomes dangerous when it leads to fanaticism and narrow-mindedness. When reason as such becomes suspect, then faith itself becomes falsified.

I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. Despair and fanaticism are only differing manifestations of evil.

To be right is dangerous, it has ever been the source of all intolerance.

Intolerance is the besetting sin of moral fervour.

Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics.

Certainty is the enemy of mankind. If you're certain about everything, you have the Inquisition, you have Nazis and you have - that certainty is something to be guarded about.

Nothing helps you sleep at night so much as being absolutely certain that you're right, and everyone else is evil.

In our modern complex world, fundamentalism is dangerous because of its rigidity and its imperviousness to other ideas.