“Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.”
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) British writer and philosopher
The French Revolution, Bk. V, ch. 4 (1794)
“Observe, in politics, that the term extremism has become a synonym of "evil," regardless of the content of the issue (the evil is not what you are extreme about, but that you are "extreme"—i. e., consistent).”
— Ayn Rand, book The Virtue of Selfishness
The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
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Ayn Rand322
Russian-American novelist and philosopher 1905–1982Related quotes
“All evils are equal when they are extreme.”
Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) French tragedian
Tous maux sont pareils alors qu’ils sont extrêmes.
Sabine, act III, scene iv.
Horace (1639)
Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer
"Mediasaurus: The decline of conventional media" - Speech at the National Press Club, Washington D.C. (7 April 1993)
Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996) Russian and American poet and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate
"A Commencement Address" (1984), delivered at Williams College; As quoted in: Robert Inchausti (2014) Thinking through Thomas Merton. p. 110
Context: The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even — if you will — eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with. Something, in other words, that can't be shared, like your own skin: not even by a minority. Evil is a sucker for solidity. It always goes for big numbers, for confident granite, for ideological purity, for drilled armies and balanced sheets. Its proclivity for such things has to do with its innate insecurity, but this realization, again, is of small comfort when Evil triumphs.
“Political discourse becomes isolated, and isolated discourse becomes more extreme.”
Lawrence Lessig book Free Culture
Free Culture (2004)
Context: We, the most powerful democracy in the world, have developed a strong norm against talking about politics. It's fine to talk about politics with people you agree with. But it is rude to argue about politics with people you disagree with. Political discourse becomes isolated, and isolated discourse becomes more extreme. We say what our friends want to hear, and hear very little beyond what our friends say.
Zakir Naik (1965) Islamic televangelist
In SEEKING KNOWLEDGE IN THE LIGHT OF ISLAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOC6iZNwvqc
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher
Jean Baudrillard in: Eldon Taylor What Does That Mean?: Exploring Mind, Meaning, and Mysteries http://books.google.co.in/books?id=pTAIRTJbENgC&pg=PA171, Hay House, Inc, 15 January 2010, p. 171 <br class="br">New millennium
Max Eastman (1883–1969) American activist
Source: Stalin's Russia and the Crisis in Socialism (1940), p. 149