extremism quotes

Aldous Huxley: 

At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.

Carolyn Heilbrun: 

Thinking about profound social change, conservatives always expect disaster, while revolutionaries confidentially expect utopia. Both are wrong. 

George Santayana: 

Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.

John W. Gardner: 

Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all.