fanaticism

Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward.

"You are never dedicated to something that you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt."

The rigidity of one's religious beliefs diminishes with the presence of faith.  Fanatacism is a grasping for order in a mind without peace and without faith.

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry. note: There is a well-authenticated anecdote of Cromwell. On a certain occasion, when his troops were about crossing a river to attack the enemy, he concluded an address, couched in the usual fanatic terms in use among them, with these words: "Put your trust in God; but mind to keep your powder dry!"

If you pick a truth and follow it blindly. It becomes a falsehood, and you a fanatic.

You desire a popular art? Begin by having a "people" whose minds are liberated, a people not crushed by misery and ceaseless toil, not brutalized by every superstition and every fanaticism, a people of itself, and victor in the fight that is being waged today.

Fanaticism is . . . overcompensation for doubt.

There is no strong performance without a little fanaticism in the performer.

It's possible to fight intolerance, stupidity and fanaticism when they come separately. When you get all three together it's probably wiser to get out, if only to preserve your sanity.