H. L. Mencken Quotes

A fanatic is one who sticks to his guns whether they're loaded or not.

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.

Nothing is so sure of itself as fanaticism.

Religiosity is suffocating in Pakistan. It invariably stokes the fire in driving society to religious extremism.

there is no fanatic like a religious fanatic.

That religious earnestness forever tends toward fright and hence towards brittleness and inquisition is clear enough in mythology and history.

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

Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings.

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 enemy of idealism is zealotry.

Many militants of the secular cause look astonishingly like clergy. Worse: like caricatures of clergy.

Conversion and zealotry, just like revelation and apostasy, are flip sides of the same coin, the currency of a political culture having more in common with religion than rational discourse.

How can you tell when a political ideology has become the equivalent of a religion?

I am a zealot, and I am wildly proud of it.

Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence.

I am dealing with fanaticism.

The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it intolerantly imposes its will against all others

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

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.

[Religious] superstition infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism.

Men whose religion was excessively zealous split themselves into opposing factions, and once divided by a single mistake they disagreed on everything and came to be entirely at odds with one another.

Fanaticism is the danger of the world, and always has been, and has done untold harm. I might almost say that I was fanatical against fanaticism.

I'm not even religious, but I get fanaticism. I get the appeal of it.

I think the worst thing we can do is to concede to fanaticism its devotion, say. Well, you have to understand, these people are really fanatics, so we should back down from them. I think if journalists start doing that then they won't be practicing journalism. If satirists start doing that then they won't be practicing satire.