Stefan Zweig (1881-1942),
Erasmus of Rotterdam, tr. Eden and Cedar Paul (1934; rpt. New York: Viking, 1956), pp. 5-6:
On this ground Erasmus set his
face against every form of fanaticism, whether religious,
national, or philosophical, considering it as the prime
enemy to mutual understanding. He detested bigotry in
all its manifestations; he loathed the stiffnecked and the
biased, whether these wore a priestly cassock or a professorial gown; he hated those who put on blinkers, and the
zealots of every class and race who demanded immediate
acquiescence in their own opinions while looking upon
the ideas that failed to correspond with theirs as rank
heresy or rascality. Just as he himself never wished to
impose his outlooks upon his neighbour, so in turn did
he refuse to be burdened with the religious or political
theories of others if these happened to be alien and
unacceptable. He took it as a matter of course that a
man had a right to his own opinions; absolute independence of mind was essential. Himself a free spirit, he
looked upon it as a fettering of the delightful manifoldedness of the universe when, from pulpit or university chair,
a man declared his truth to be the only truth, to be a
special message which God had whispered into his ear
and his ear alone.
Id., p. 17:
To
right of him was exaggeration and to left was exaggeration, to right he saw fanaticism and to left; and he, the
intractable antifanatic, desired to serve neither one
form of excess nor the other.
Id., pp. 68-69:
But his favourite method of resistance
was simply to withdraw into his shell like a snail whenever the tumult raged around him. The safest shelter,
then, was his study, behind a barricade of books. Here he
deemed himself really secure.
Id., p. 233:
[N]one was willing to understand what his neighbour said, but instead each tried to impose his own pet
belief, his particular doctrine, upon all the rest. Woe
unto him who stood aside and took no part in the game!
Twofold hatred was hurled against those who remained
aloof. Those who live for the spirit are lonely indeed
at times when passion rages. Who is there left to write
for when ears are deafened with political yappings and
yelpings?