Moderates Quotes

“In politics, everyone regards themselves as a moderate, because they know some other sumbitch who's twice as crazy as they are.”
― Timothy B. Tyson, Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story

“We live in a time when moderates are treated worse than extremists, being punished as if they were more fanatical than the actual fanatics.”
― Orson Scott Card, Empire

“Everything you say,' Geno said rather irritably, 'contradicts itself.'
'Of course it does,' the screech owl rejoined obscurely. 'Otherwise, how would anyone ever keep to the middle of the road?”
― Felix Salten, Bambi's Children

“The only saving I need is from those who are trying very hard to be saved.”
― Osama Wazan

“The truth, however, is that most Muslims appear to be "fundamental-
ist" in the Western sense of the word—in that even "moderate"
approaches to Islam generally consider the Koran to be the literal and
inerrant word of the one true God. The difference between funda-
mentalists and moderates—and certainly the difference between all
"extremists" and moderates—is the degree to which they see political
and military action to be intrinsic to the practice of their faith. In any
case, people who believe that Islam must inform every dimension of
human existence, including politics and law, are now generally called
not "fundamentalists" or "extremists" but, rather, "Islamists.”
― Sam Harris

“The Jacobins were the standard bearers of the left. Liberals are not on the left. They are in the center, and often trending right with their hatred of the State and any possibility of State social engineering on the grand scale. It has been rightly observed that the hallmark of liberalism is wanting the “thing without the thing”, as Slavoj Zizek famously put it. The liberals want war without war, revolution without revolution, drugs without any of the downside of drugs, coffee without caffeine. They want a situation that inevitably leads to violence, without the violence. They immediately condemn the violence even though violence was implicit in the entire project from the get-go.”
― Joe Dixon, The Mandarin Effect: The Crisis of Meaning

“Certainly Birmingham had its white moderates who disapproved of Bull Connor's tactics. Certainly Birmingham had its decent white citizens who privately deplored the maltreatment of Negroes. But they remained publicly silent. It was a silence born of fear—fear of social, political and economic reprisals. The ultimate tragedy of Birmingham was not the brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good people.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

“I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

“The crystallized opposition of the segregationists was not unexpected; but we had only dimly foreseen the resistance that came from another quarter. Victor Hugo has spoken of the "madmen of moderation" who are "un-paving hell." The descendants of Hugo's moderates appeared in the fall of 1963, bearing banners inscribed with the message: Order Before Justice.

For the most part, these moderates counted themselves as friends of the civil-rights movement; certainly they were in no sense moral bedfellows of the forces of segregation and violence. But they were now wrestling with a logic that an earlier, more passive, movement had never forced them to question. They had long settled on a simple compromise, one easy to accept and to live with. They could countenance token changes, and they had always believed these would make the Negro content. They were not asking him to stay in his old ghetto. They were ready to build a brand-new ghetto for him with a small exit door for a few. But the breath of the new movement chilled them. The Negro was insisting upon the mass application of equality to jobs, housing, education and social mobility. He sought a full life for a whole people. These moderates had come some distance in step with the thundering drums, but at the point of mass application they wanted the bugle to sound a retreat.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

“If we analyze white supremacy from the philosophical lens of Star Wars, then it is all the Sith Lords, the Empire, and the First Order commanded by the Dark Side of the Force. It wants to dominate and impose its will on all galaxies, even those far, far away. Let’s just call this insidious force THE WHITENESS.

The Whiteness’s ability to inspire fear and anger is so strong that it corrupted many well-​intentioned people, including people of color, to vote for an incompetent vulgarian in 2016 and 2020. It deludes many liberal and “moderate” whites into believing that they are the “good” ones who are committed to social justice as they talk about white privilege but never actually give up any of it. Still, they’ll have these discussions about racial equality with their white friends in establishments with white patrons from white neighborhoods—​without including the rest of us.

The Whiteness has always played for all the marbles. It’s not interested in diplomacy, a representative government, free and fair elections, equitable pay, and a delicious buffet of meals from a multitude of countries. It needs a border wall, a Muslim Ban, and affirmative action for wealthy white students at Yale University. It’s a system, a structure, a paradigm, an ideology whose ultimate goal is domination and submission by any means necessary.”
― Wajahat Ali, Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American

“Don't love someone too much as well don't hate too much”
― Wilson M Mukama

“Within each public issue, the clearest division is between moderates and extremists. As such, the right third parties in a negotiation are moderates. They, more than extremists, are focused on building a better way of life (tomorrow), whereas most extremists are focused on tearing things down as a penalty for yesterday.”
― Stuart Diamond, Getting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World

“Free speech is when the left-wing dislike but allow the words and thoughts of the right-wing, and the right-wing dislike but allow the words and thoughts of the left-wing. What we are experiencing now in Western democracies, is the left-wing not only disallowing the words and thoughts of the right-wing, but also the words and thoughts of the moderates. Any such imbalance is dangerous to society.”
― Robert Black