Bill Moyers Quotes

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

I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely, to be the truth.

The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.

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.

When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

There are many who lust for the simple answers of doctrine or decree. They are on the left and right. They are not confined to a single part of the society. They are terrorists of the mind.

Religion doesn't make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.

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

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

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

Is there anything more dangerous than an ideologue who doesn't know he's wrong?

The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do.

Moral certainty can deafen people to any truth other than their own.

I'm opposed to fundamentalism in any form.

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

Marxism, Freudianism, global warming. These are proof - of which history offers so many examples - that people can be suckers on a grand scale. To their fanatical followers they are a substitute for religion. Global warming, in particular, is a creed, a faith, a dogma that has little to do with science.

A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.

There is a holy, mistaken zeal in politics, as well as in religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves.

The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.

We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think religion stops people from thinking. I think it justified crazies.

The sin of certainty leaves no room for the rest of us.

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.

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

Some people choose not to believe the truth because it disagrees with what they fundamentally want.