TOLERANCE QUOTES

quotations about tolerance

Tolerance quote

Toleration is being wise enough to have no difference with those who differ from us.

PAUL CHATFIELD

attributed, Day's Collacon


Toleration is odious to the intolerant.

EDMUND BURKE

The Speeches of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke

Tags: Edmund Burke


Tolerance too is learned in discussion, and, as history shows, is only so learned. In all customary societies bigotry is the ruling principle. In rude places to this day any one who says anything new is looked on with suspicion, and is persecuted by opinion if not injured by penalty. One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea. It is, as common people say, so 'upsetting;' it makes you think that, after all, your favorite notions may be wrong, your firmest beliefs ill-founded; it is certain that till now there was no place allotted in your mind to the new and startling inhabitant, and now that it has conquered an entrance you do not at once see which of your old ideas it will or will not turn out, with which of them it can be reconciled, and with which it is at essential enmity. Naturally, therefore, common men hate a new idea, and are disposed more or less to ill-treat the original man who brings it. Even nations with long habits of discussion are intolerant enough. In England, where there is on the whole probably a freer discussion of a greater number of subjects than ever was before in the world, we know how much power bigotry retains. But discussion, to be successful, requires tolerance. It fails wherever, as in a French political assembly, any one who hears anything which he dislikes tries to howl it down. If we know that a nation is capable of enduring continuous discussion, we know that it is capable of practicing with equanimity continuous tolerance.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Physics and Politics

Tags: Walter Bagehot


We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

KARL R. POPPER

The Open Society and Its Enemies


Tolerance is the only real test of civilization.

ARTHUR HELPS

Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd

Tags: Arthur Helps


In a republic, to be successful we must learn to combine intensity of conviction with a broad tolerance of difference of conviction. Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth. Bitter internecine hatreds, based on such differences, are signs, not of earnestness of belief, but of that fanaticism which, whether religious or anti-religious, democratic or anti-democratic, is itself but a manifestation of the gloomy bigotry which has been the chief factor in the downfall of so many, many nations.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

address delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Tags: Theodore Roosevelt


It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.

HERMANN HESSE

Siddhartha

Tags: Hermann Hesse


It is necessary to be tolerant, in order to be tolerated.

NORMAN MACDONALD

Maxims and Moral Reflections

Tags: Norman MacDonald


Tolerance should, strictly speaking, be only a passing mood; it ought to lead to acknowledgment and appreciation. To tolerate a person is to affront him.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe

Tags: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Love, not tolerance, is the supreme virtue, the true yardstick and ultimate determiner of how we are to treat one another. Tolerance CAN be exactly what's needed in a situation ... or it can be a huge copout, the easy path that does neither party any good.

CURTISS P. DWYER

"Tolerance ... rightly understood", Quantico Sentry, May 25, 2017


It is of paramount importance that we teach younger generations the intrinsic values of tolerance -- a much maligned yet ultimately universal necessity. We live in a world where intolerance and its associated verbal and physical violence are increasing daily.

GEORGE SUCHETT-KAYE

"The Virtue of Tolerance -- Lessons from a 17th Century Attic", Conatus News, May 16, 2017


Intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education.

ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN

August 1914

Tags: Alexander Solzhenitsyn


Tolerance is seen as a virtue because of its concern for the common good. Once tolerance is cut loose from this larger moral vision, however, and becomes shackled to notions of individual freedom to do what one pleases absent much consideration of the common good, it becomes quite a different sort of beast.

D. A. CARSON

The Intolerance of Tolerance


Tolerance is nothing more than patience with boundaries.

H. THOMPSON BARNHART III

P.S. Grandma Says


Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.

ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL

attributed, Be Reasonable: Selected Quotations for Inquiring Minds

Tags: Robert Green Ingersoll


Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.

THOMAS MANN

The Magic Mountain

Tags: Thomas Mann


Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.

VOLTAIRE

Philosophical Dictionary

Tags: Voltaire


Tolerance is a basic pillar of democracy and the bulwark against totalitarian patterns of action and regimes.

WILLI MERNYI

"Discrimination rising, tolerance in decline in Germany, Austria", Daily Sabah, May 5, 2017


Tolerance is key in unlocking all closed doors.

MARINA FINCI

"Open air exhibition 'Tolerance' kick starts Europe Day celebration in BiH", European Western Balkans, May 9, 2017


The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.

GEORGE ELIOT

The Mill on the Floss

Tags: George Eliot