Just as every conviction begins as a whim so does every emancipator serve his apprenticeship as a crank. A fanatic is a great leader who is just entering the room.

-Broun, (Matthew) Heywood Campbell
  In NewYork World, 6 Feb.

   A crank is a small engine that causes revolutions.

-Sheehy-Skeffington, Francis
On being described as a crank, quoted by his son Owen.

The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

-Twain, Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens
  Following the Equator, ch.32.