How does a fanatic behave? He wants to convert people as quickly as possible; while they, as a rule, do not want to be converted. Everybody is expected immediately to believe what the fanatic wants them to believe and he is angry when this does not happen.
In our day, when someone sets out to expound a particular subject, people simply do not believe that his aim may be not to voice his own views but something quite different, that is, the thoughts and opinions of the one of whom he is writing.
For many years I was held to be a follower of Nietzsche because I once wrote an absolutely objective book about him. People simply cannot understand that the aim of a writer may be to give an objective exposition. They think that everyone must be a fanatic on the subject of which he happens to be speaking.
Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 130 –Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz – INTIMATE WORKINGS OF KARMA – Vienna, 9th February 1912
Translated by Pauline Wehrle
Previously posted on February 10, 2017
The great Rudolf Steiner Quotes Site 