Overzealousness Quotes

Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming.

I've been accused of being a bit too keen on my football, not least by my three ex-wives.

'Savior Of Nothing' calls out the would-be social justice warriors of the world who become so enveloped in fighting so passionately that they become exactly what they're trying to correct. They preach acceptance so much they become unaccepting.

Fanaticism, the false fire of an overheated mind.

Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.

I'm an extremist. I don't do things in halves. I don't moderate anything. That can be with work or with good things as well. But often, I take it a bit too far.

Earnestness is good; it means business. But fanaticism overdoes, and is consequently reactionary.

Trying too hard to be too good, even when trying to be bad, is too good for the bad, too bad for the good.

The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.

I did that all the more, if I may say so, because I was aware of the fact that there is an inclination to go to extremes in German people, and in the German character generally.

Nothing hath wrought more prejudice to religion, or brought more disparagement upon truth, than boisterous and unseasonable zeal.

Cricket is not a rational sport in India, and we go overboard.

Does political correctness have a good side? Yes, it does, for it makes us re-examine attitudes, and that is always useful. The trouble is that, with all popular movements, the lunatic fringe so quickly ceases to be a fringe; the tail begins to wag the dog. For every woman or man who is quietly and sensibly using the idea to examine our assumptions, there are twenty rabble-rousers whose real motive is desire for power over others. The fact that they see themselves as antiracists or feminists or whatever does not make them any less rabble-rousers.

I'm sure Sting's a lovely guy. It's just that nobody wants to be seen as that holier-than-thou thing. That over-earnestness is a bit of a problem with people in bands and celebrities or whatever.

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and overzealous piety.

We go all wrong by too strenuous a resolution to go right.

We believed anything worth doing was worth over-doing

[New York reformers] tried to stand so straight that they fell over backwards.

Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.

You know, you don't need a leader to sort of administer something that's going very well. In fact, in one sense, an overly ambitious person in that circumstance can probably screw it up.

If you want this job too much you may not be any good at it.

Zeal is very blind, or badly regulated, when it encroaches upon the rights of others.

I try hard not to preach, but I get carried away, which is a mistake, but it's a risk worth running.

Fanatics, as a class, have far more zeal than intellect and are fanatics only because they have. There can be no fanaticism but where there is more passion than reason; and hence, in the nature of things, movements originating in it run down in a short time by their folly and extravagance.

My intensity is my greatest strength. It's also my greatest weakness.