Tolerance quotes
561 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside tolerance — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"One cannot fail to observe a crushing irony: the gospel of relativistic tolerance is perhaps the most “evangelistic” movement in Western culture at the moment, demanding assent and brooking no rivals."
"It is our enemies who provide us with the challenge we need to develop the qualities of tolerance, patience and compassion."
"Education is the way to achieve far-reaching results, it is the proper way to promote compassion and tolerance in society."
"It is not a merit to tolerate, but rather a crime to be intolerant."
"Religions are many and diverse, but reason and goodness are one."
"Tolerance - the function of an extinguished ardor - tolerance cannot seduce the young."
"The qualities most needed are charity and tolerance, not some form of fanatical faith such as is offered to us by the various rampant isms"
"Certainly tolerance and acceptance were at the forefront of my music."
"I think we have to understand that when tolerance becomes a one-way street, it will lead to cultural suicide. We should not allow the Muslim Brotherhood or associated groups to be influencing our national security strategy."
"We have entered a period of intolerance which combines, as it sometimes does in America, with a sugary taste for euphemism."
"...if we are open and we prepare for promoting dialogue and love, and a better understanding of each other, and tolerance and so forth, that's what the world will become, a more tolerant, loving place."
"The American dream does not happen by asking Americans to accept what's immoral and wrong in the name of tolerance."
"Tolerance gives us spiritual insight, which is as far from fanaticism as the north pole is from the south."
"One of the greatest disasters of our time is our universal acceptance of the word "tolerance" as a great virtue."
"There is probably not one person, however great his virtue, who cannot be led by the complexities of life's circumstances to a familiarity with the vices he condemns the most vehemently--without his completely recognizing this vice which, disguised as certain events, touches him and wounds him: strange words, an inexplicable attitude, on a given night, of the person whom he otherwise has so many reasons to love."
"Tolerance comes of age. I see no fault committed that I myself could not have committed at some time or other."
"Let's be careful when we start comparing American to European tolerance because there isn't necessarily a lot of European tolerance."
"If indeed the qualities such as love, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness are what happiness consists in, and if it is also true that compassion, defined as concern for others, is both the source and the fruit of these qualities, then the more we are compassionate, the more we provide for our own happiness."
"No one can learn tolerance in a climate of irresponsibility, which does not produce democracy. The act of tolerating requires a climate in which limits may be established, in which there are principles to be respected. That is why tolerance is not coexistence with the intolerable. Under an authoritarian regime, in which authority is abused, or a permissive one, in which freedom is not limited, one can hardly learn tolerance. Tolerance requires respect, discipline, and ethics."
"Lots of people today would never consider themselves guilty of idolatry as far as it is spelled out in the Ten Commandments, but by reducing God to some benevolent "man upstairs" whose only attributes are love and tolerance, and who could not care less about sin, they truly have transgressed God's commandment. They have created a god in their mind who does not actually exist and will on the day of judgment, not be able to offer them any help."
