حين ننظر إلى أسوأ الأزمنة، يبدو دائمًا أنها كانت أزمنة وُجد فيها أناس آمنوا بشيء ما إيمانًا مطلقًا وتعصّبوا له تعصبًا مطلقًا، وكانوا من الجدّية في ذلك بحيث أصرّوا على أن يوافقهم بقية العالم. ثم كانوا يفعلون أشياء تناقض معتقداتهم تناقضًا صريحًا، من أجل أن يُبقوا على ما قالوه صحيحًا.

“Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do things that were directly inconsistent with their own beliefs in order to maintain that what they said was true.”Richard P. Feynman — The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist (2009)