“The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be.”
“It is the nature of men having escaped one extreme, which by force they were constrained long to endure, to run headlong into the other extreme, forgetting that virtue doth always consist in the mean.”
“What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.”
“No violent extreme endures.”
“Nothing fools people as much as extreme passion.”
“This woman did not fly to extremes; she lived there.”
“So over violent, or over civil that every man with him was God or Devil.”
“Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.”
“Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions.”
“The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm.”
“Railing and praising were his usual themes; and both showed his judgment in extremes. Either over violent or over civil, so everyone to him was either god or devil.”