Unyielding Beliefs Quotes

They may kill me, but they cannot kill my ideas. They can crush my body, but they will not be able to crush my spirit.

It's quite difficult to get through to the people who are really committed to these anti-progressive beliefs.

When certain people have certain beliefs, they can be unyielding, and that's really what faith is. There's a large place in the world for faith, but when it comes to a scientific, political, and economic issue, dogma is not a very good place to start.

Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts.

Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe.

There are some people who are so partisan that they do not live in the word the rest of us are in.

I don't delude myself into thinking I'll bring anyone around to my way of thinking, especially Sean Hannity.

God help us from those who believe that they are the sole possessors of truth. How we manage at times to agree willingly to become prisoners within our own minds and souls of beliefs and ideas on which we can never be flexible.

I'm not easily influenced by a lot of people.

Refuse to compromise what you know to be right for anyone or anything.

The obsession with moderation is the spirit of castrated narrow-mindedness.

Adherence to dogmas has destroyed more armies and cost more battles than anything in war.

Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves. The more untenable their position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do to support it.

Sadly, in the highest levels of economic thought in government, questions are not tolerated. It is as if we're dealing with the binary thinking of a fundamentalist religion.

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.

The opposite of compromise is not integrity. The opposite of compromise is not idealism. The opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death. And yes, I know one or two things about fanaticism and death, and I reject them. The alternative to fanaticism and to death is not some miraculous realization that someone has been wrong and he has to apologize. No, the answer to fanaticism and to death is curiosity and compromise and concession.

Entrenched scriptural literalism is, in my opinion, completely out of touch with reality.

What's wrong with Singapore is the idea that things need to be done in a certain way or not at all. Black or white. No room for alternative discussion.

Zealots are like one track-pony. Don't get in their way without expecting to get hurt.

The fanatic has the courage of his conviction and the intolerance of his courage. He is opposed to the death penalty for murder, but he would willingly have anyone electrocuted who disagreed with him on the subject.

They've seen me make decisions, they've seen me under trying times, they've seen me weep, they've seen me laugh, they've seen me hug. And they know who I am, and I believe they're comfortable with the fact that they know I'm not going to shift principles or shift positions based upon polls and focus groups.

Bad religion is arrogant, self-righteous, dogmatic and intolerant. And so is bad science. But unlike religious fundamentalists, scientific fundamentalists do not realize that their opinions are based on faith. They think they know the truth.

My father was a man of principle who found his principles confirmed in the unremitting failure which they brought on him.

I'm cursed with this puritanical streak that makes me want everything to be about something. It's a terrible affliction.

Zealots: Wild eyed persons afflicted with incurable certainty about the workings of the world, a certainty that can lead to violence when the world doesn't fit.