16 quotes
Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.
The True Believer (1951)
Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.
The True Believer (1951)
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.
The True Believer (1951)
Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.
The True Believer (1951)
Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs.
The True Believer (1951)
Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
The True Believer (1951)
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.
The True Believer (1951)
The fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure.
The True Believer (1951)
Fanatical orthodoxy is in all movements a late development. It comes when the movement is in full possession of power and can impose its faith by force as well as by persuasion.
The True Believer (1951)
Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership. There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
The True Believer (1951)
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. A doctrine that is understood is shorn of its strength.
The True Believer (1951)
Since men of words usually play a crucial role in the rise of mass movements, it is obvious that the presence of an educated and articulate minority is probably indispensable for the continued vigor of a social body.
The True Believer (1951)
We do not make people humble and meek when we show them their guilt and cause them to be ashamed of themselves. We are more likely to stir their arrogance and rouse in them a reckless aggressiveness. Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.
The True Believer (1951)
J. B. S. Haldane counts fanaticism among the only four really important inventions made between 3000 B.C and 1400 A.D. It was a Judaic-Christian invention. And it is strange to think that in receiving this malady of the soul the world also received a miraculous instrument for raising societies and nations from the dead—an instrument of resurrection.
The True Believer (1951)
For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image. And whether we are to line up with him or against him, it is well that we should know all we can concerning his nature and potentialities.
The True Believer (1951)
Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience—the knowledge that our might deeds will come to the ears of our contemporaries or "of those that are to be." We are ready to sacrifice our true, transitory self for the imaginary eternal self we are building up, by our heroic deeds, in the opinion and imagination of others.
The True Believer (1951)