Fanatic

“ But when you tell me that your faith commands you to force it with fire and sword upon the consciences of those who hold another creed, then I tell you to your face that you are a fanatic and a persecutor. ”

“ Is it because the highest talent of the nation, its ablest zeal, its stoutest heroism, is religious in its motive, religious in its aim, religious in its means, religious in its end? Nobody pretends that. A respectable man would be thought crazy, and called a "fanatic," who should care much for religion in any of its higher forms. ”

“ Remember, he was a fanatic, and there is no fanatic like a religious fanatic. ”

“ And just think of the field of humanity closed to him! For sixteen hundred years, remarkable men and women had appeared, representing all classes of religious character, from the ecstasy of the saint to the gloom of the fanatic ”

“ A fanatic in faith, by virtue of certain asperities of mind and a critical temperament, he had never made friends, won his parish into close ties, nor advanced the cause of his religion as he had yearned to do. ”

“ They are religious, but their religious opinions are not permitted to excite either the passion of sorrow or of joy; and as soon as a person begins to feel what he believes, he is denounced a fanatic. ”

“ A true fanatic, his promptings were reasons enough for his actions. ”

“ "I'm in the Lord's hands," he said humbly. "I'm but a penny whistle for His breath to blow on." This he said with such solemnity that the meaning of a fanatic was suddenly revealed to me. One or two distorted notions, a wild imagination, and fierce passions, and there you have the ingredients ready. ”

“ The race of Fanatics are somewhat akin to these restless seekers. There is a wildness and excessive extravagance in their notions and actions which separates them from the calm followers of Truth, and leads them into strange courses and curious beliefs. How far the sacred fire of enthusiasm may be separated from the fierce heat of fanaticism we need not now inquire, nor whether a spark of the latter has not shone brilliantly in many a noble soul and produced brave deeds and acts of piety and self-sacrifice. ”

“ These people were fanatics, and fanaticism has been defined as “a popular movement acting without reason or judgment, always, however, founded upon some religious or philanthropic idea or sentiment, to give it character and volume.” ”

“ If I have contributed in ever so slight a degree towards an understanding of the mental state or attitude we call fanaticism, for the purpose of guarding against the catastrophes it begets, I shall have achieved my purpose. ”

“ CHAPTER XI PERUKES AND PERIWIGS
o-day, when every man, save a football player or some eccentric reformer or religious fanatic, displays in youth a close-cropped head, and when even hoary age is seldom graced with flowing, silvery locks, when women’s hair is dressed in simplicity, we can scarcely realize the important and formal part the hair played in the dress of the eighteenth century. ”

“ There might be a touch of over-excited enthusiasm--of that sort of exaltation of mind which men call fanaticism in religion, and which borders upon frenzy, when it relates to the common affairs of life, but I hope--I believe--nay, I am sure that there was no thirst of personal revenge in that wish. ”

“ Though I deprecate the bad effects of fanaticism, I earnestly pray that our young Sovereign may evince herself to be a person of deep religious feeling: what other cure has she for all the arrogance and vanity which her exalted position must engender? ”

“ Those who lightly dismiss him as a fanatic, have never felt the burning shame of sin which consumes the reformer’s soul. That he was led to think that God had intrusted him with a mission and had used him as the trumpet of His warnings we may well believe ”

“ for the cardinal doctrine of a fanatic's creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God. ”

“ There is no fanaticism like the fanaticism of love, whether it exists in the bosom of a cloistered nun, wrapped in visions of her Divine Bridegroom, or in that of a devoted wife, a faithful slave, or a poor dog who stretches himself across the grave of his master and dies. ”

“ The signification of the terms have too much latitude for maintaining solidity in argument. If by an enthusiast and fanatic are meant a person who vainly imagines himself to have a supernatural intercourse with the spiritual world, and revelations from the Lord ”

“ It is a fanaticism which puts forth no good fruit; instead of blessing, it has brought forth cursing; instead of love, hatred, instead of life, death—bitterness and sorrow, and pain; and infidelity and moral degeneracy follow its labours. ”

“ The growth of fanaticism, whether moral, political, religious, or scientific, is not confined exclusively to any age or country; the seeds of it have been but too plentifully sown in all the regions of the earth ”

“ To the fanaticism of your adversaries you will oppose that well considered firmness, that calm energy, that self-possessed valour, that serenity of enthusiasm, which the sentiment of a good cause and the enlightened conscience of duty impart. ”

“ Do you not feel in your heart of hearts, or must I tell you, that we are divided, as far as the north pole from the south, in our most intimate convictions, and that what you and my father call religion I consider as fanaticism—or that something which is worse than fanaticism, or almost than crime—hypocrisy. ”

“ The same culture that has extinguished in our brains the fire of fanatical zeal has also smothered the glow of inspiration in our hearts, clipped the wings of our sentiment, and destroyed our doughty energy of character.... ”

“ Those who have only heard his name associated with all that is hateful in fanaticism, have necessarily formed opinions respecting him anything but complimentary to his intelligence and sanity; but those who knew him better, esteemed him as a man of more than ordinary mental power, a cool, sagacious, and honest reasoner, a humble and devout Christian, a kind and affectionate friend, a man of great moral and social worth. ”

“ I know that there is a feeling in the breasts of many people that this sort of thing is fanaticism. This is characteristic of the age of unbelief in which we live. God, in the minds of this generation, is removed far from them. ”

“ Yes, all religious systems are beset with fanaticism and always fanatics are, in some sense, dangerous. Then, too, to what lengths will not ambitious self-seeking, lead mortals, even blinding them to every principle which ennobles and elevates humanity. ”

“ There is an eternal antagonism between true holiness and fanaticism in all its phases, and the individual possessed of the fulness [307] of the Holy Ghost will be able to detect fanaticism in others whether it be in outward act or deportment or in the more subtle form of heretical teaching. The Spirit and the Word agree, and the Holy Spirit moves and works in harmony with the written Word and never contrary thereto. ”

“ We impute fanaticism {198} when the tension of religious feeling destroys the moral equilibrium or stunts development of other parts of our nature, or prompts to acts which, but for this morbid influence, would excite moral indignation. ”

“ When unbalanced, one of its vices is called Fanaticism. Fanaticism (when not a mere expression of ecclesiastical ambition) is only loyalty carried to a convulsive extreme. When an intensely loyal and narrow mind is once grasped by the feeling that a certain superhuman person is worthy of its exclusive devotion, one of the first things that happens is that it idealizes the devotion itself. ”

“ I see you have imbibed one of the notions of our modern fanatics. And is it possible that you can give up your understanding to the dominion of fanaticism, which avows sentiments not less [313] derogatory to the dignity of man, than its unintelligible jargon is offensive to pure taste? They say that no one can understand the gospel unless he is taught by the Spirit of God. They think we must be inspired to enable us to understand the Scriptures, which were given by Divine inspiration, and which are able of themselves to make us wise unto salvation. ”

“ How could he prophesy evil to one over whom he will have no control? to one watched over and beloved by a man like Charles? He is a dreamer, a fanatic. His talk about the flaw in my nature is nonsense, and as for the fate lowering over my head, in the shadows falling from the toppling old house in which I am likely to take up my abode—that is only frenzy, and I would be unworthy of happiness to heed it. ”

“ Then, in the name of God, men are bid to have no fellowship with unbelievers, no sympathy with sinners. Nay, you are bidden to hate your brethren of a different mode of religious belief. This fanaticism organizes itself, now into brief and temporary activity, to persecute a saint, or to stone a philanthropist ”

“ Surely, there is no fanaticism like religious fanaticism, and no licentiousness like that of the unbridled devotee of the Church.
Finally, as a whole, I feel confident that my effort will not fail to create food for thought, and eventually justify the effort which called it forth. ”

“ Chewing over and over the cud of his simple belief as the one food of his unfed mind, his faith becomes fanaticism; his big spacial ideas, born of that ceaseless regular wandering, outgrow the land that bred them and bear their legitimate fruit in wide imperial conquests. ”

“ If they have any meaning, they are intended to prove that the gentle excitement of the passions constitutes a legitimate evidence of conversion; but if the passions should be strongly excited—if they should overflow, and dare to wet the couch of a penitent with the fast-dropping tear—if they should touch on the borders of the joy which is unspeakable and full of glory—or if they ever should sink into despondency, or rise to a hope full of immortality, then they change their character, and become, not the evidences of conversion, but of fanaticism. ”

“ This is the reason that so many nations have often been the scene of extravagances of senseless visionaries, who, believing their empty speculations to be eternal truths, and publishing them as such, have kindled the zeal of princes and their subjects, and made them take up arms for opinions, represented to them as essential to the glory of the Deity. In all parts of our globe, fanatics have cut each other's throats, publicly burnt each other, committed without a scruple and even as a duty, the greatest crimes, and shed torrents of blood. ”

“ If it be enthusiasm that in them the fear of God had cast out the fear of man, or fanaticism that they placed "things that are spiritually discerned" above the vain shows of the world of sense, in so far they were enthusiasts and fanatics. ”

“ To say that we are guided by the Spirit, without due regard for the Book He has been the principal one in writing, leads to fanaticism, or at least to ill-advised, unbalanced, unnatural opinions and action.
Naturally one's own judgment and spirit-insight play a large part, for they make the personal decision, they interpret both Word and Spirit to us. ”

“ A special question will arise concerning the supremacy of the goddess, a phenomenon which may be of some importance as a clue in our whole inquiry. The comparison will then be applied to the religious psychology of the different peoples; and here it will be useful to analyse and define that element of the religious temper which we call fanaticism, and which sometimes affords one of the crucial distinctions between one religion and another. ”

“ Cast off all superstition, and be more humane. But when you speak against fanaticism, anger not the fanatics; they are delirious invalids, who would assault their physicians. Let us make their ways more gentle, not aggravate them. ”

“ And all fear of fanaticism will be finally removed by a further most necessary and grandly enlarging insistence upon the Mercenaries and even the Servants having passing moments, and producing varyingly numerous single acts of, Pure Love and of the other supernatural virtues prompted by Pure Love. ”

“ But this constancy of individuals when suffering under the measures they themselves have introduced, however curious and respectable as a specimen of the unvarying effect of fanaticism, whether religious or social, [Pg 129] on the human mind, cannot permanently arrest the march of events ”

“ I mean the true religion hitherto established among us, without varying in the least either to popery on the one side, or to fanaticism on the others and in a particular manner beware of that word, moderation; and believe it, that your neighbour is not immediately a villain, a papist, and a traitor, because the fanaticks and their adherents will not allow him to be a moderate man. Nay, it is very probable, that your teacher himself may be a loyal, pious, and able divine, without the least grain of moderation, as the word is too frequently understood. ”

“ It must be fully admitted at this point that the fanaticism of the so-called "pure saint" and the so-called "pure artist" who suppress, the one for the sake of "goodness" and the other for the sake of "beauty," the third great primordial idea which we have called "truth," is a fanaticism just as one sided and just as destructive of the complete harmonious vision as those other kinds. ”

“ and modern fanaticism thrives in proportion to the quantity of contradictions and nonsense it pours down the throats of the gaping multitude, and the jargon and mysticism it offers to their wonder and credulity. ”

“ The pure spirit of the gospel of Christ breathes forth a holy religion, founded on meekness, charity, kindness, and brotherly love; but fanaticism, when joined to a systematic and irrational solitude, only produces the rank and poisonous fruits we have already described. ”

“ I was astonished to find in that fanatical preacher a very intelligent, and, upon the whole, a man of a liberal, although not of a profound mind, who understood the foundation and the vital intention of the sect, and could render a reason for all. ”