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“When we see religion split into so many thousand of sects, and I may say Christianity itself divided into its thousands also, who are disputing, anathematizing and where the laws permit burning and torturing one another for abstractions which no one of them understand, and which are indeed beyond the comprehension of the human mind, into which of the chambers of this Bedlam would a man wish to thrust himself.

[Letter to George Logan, 12 November 1816]”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“Morality is everywhere the same for all men, therefore it comes from God; sects differ, therefore they are the work of men.”
― Voltaire, A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary

“Quinn seemed to have become one of a jaded philosophical society, a group of arcane deviates. Their raison d'etre was a kind of mystical masochism, forcing initiates toward feats of occult daredevilry - "glimpsing the inferno with eyes of ice", to take from the notebook a phrase that was repeated often and seemed a sort of chant of power. As I suspected, hallucinogenic drugs were used by the sect, and there was no doubt that they believed themselves communing with strange metaphysical venues. Their chief aim, in true mystical fashion, was to transcend common reality in the search for higher states of being, but their stratagem was highly unorthodox, a strange detour along the usual path toward positive illumination. Instead, they maintained a kind of blasphemous fatalism, a doomed determinism which brought them face to face with realms of obscure horror. Perhaps it was this very obscurity that allowed them the excitement of their central purpose, which seemed to be a precarious flirting with personal apocalypse, the striving for horrific dominion over horror itself.

("The Dreaming In Nortown")”
― Thomas Ligotti, The Nightmare Factory

“The idea of a small circle, of an exalted and loyal sect, except with a traitor infiltrated at its core, an informant who's not foreign to the sect, but constitutes an essential part of its structure---this was the true organizational form of any small society. One must act knowing that there's a traitor infiltrated in the ranks.”
― Ricardo Piglia, Blanco nocturno

“Among [Applewhite's] other teachings was the classic cult specialty of developing disdain for anyone outside of the Heaven's Gate commune. Applewhite flattered his would-be alien flock that they were an elite elect far superior to the non-initiated humans whom he considered to be deluded zombies.[...]Applewhite effectively fed his paranoid persecution complex to his followers to ensure blind loyalty to the group and himself while fostering alienation from the mundane world. This paradoxical superior/fearful attitude towards “Themâ€� (i.e., anyone who is not one of “Usâ€�) is one of the simplest means of hooking even the most skeptical curiosity seeker into the solipsistic netherworld of a [mentally unbalanced] leader's insecure and threatened worldview.”
― Zeena Schreck, Straight To Hell: 20th Century Suicides

“... the reader is probably wondering that if Tolkien did indeed fashion two of his heroic characters from Catholic prophecies, what about the evil protagonists? Were any of them inspired by these little-known revelations concerning future times? The answer is yes, but to discover the links between the myth and the prophecies, we must venture not only into the realm of unnerving revelations, but also into the murky world of secret sects, dark plots, occult signs, bloody revolutions and conspiracy theories ~ we must probe deep into the burning Eye of Sauron.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Lord of the Rings: Apocalyptic Prophecies

“We were a religious sect consisting of two people, and now half the congregation was gone. There would be no closure, no healing. I would simply adjust myself to a new and severely depleted reality. The world would come to an end, as it always does, one world at a time.”
― James Marcus

“Eigentlich ist jede Familie eine Sekte für sich, mit irgendeiner speziellen Idee oder Wahnvorstellung, um die alles kreist, oft naheliegende Dinge wie Status, Macht, Tradition, Prominenz, Vermögen, Schönheit, Talente der Kinder.”
― Miriam Böttger, Aus dem Haus: Roman

“If a sect does officially insist that its structure of belief demands that evolution be false, then no compromise is possible. An honest and competent biology teacher can only conclude that the sect's beliefs are wrong and that its religion is a false one.”
― George Gaylord Simpson

“The condemnation of sects is, like any witch-hunt, disgraceful: 'mental deficiency', 'cult of the guru', 'suicidal drive' etc. As though all these things were not standard in the normal sphere of conventions and the social order. This is reminiscent of the charge of 'cowardice' made against suicides.”
― Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories V: 2000 - 2004

“Many things which happen in the world have their power: ideas have their power, political systems have their power, even art movements have their power because there is some seed of truth in them. And if you don’t understand what that seed of truth is and how it got mixed up with error, what it in it is genuine, what in it is fake, you will not be able to be living in the world today; and a Christian lives in the world. You must understand, that a sectarian saves himself, and he saves anybody he can keep away from reality, keep in his little corner some place. But if that person goes out in the world and starts asking questions, he loses his sectarian views because it’s not plausible. He has to keep his sectarian faith in a little corner someplace, a piece of society.”
― Seraphim Rose, Orthodox Survival Course

“It’s always the other guy’s religion that’s a sect, isn’t it?”
― Yuri Herrera, The Transmigration of Bodies