Bigotry

“ No quarter whatever should be given to the bigotry of people so unfit for social life as to insist not only that their own prejudices and superstitions should have the fullest toleration but that everybody else should be compelled to think and act as they do. ”

“ He has a crowd soul, a crowd creed. Charged with convictions, galvanized from one convention to another, he contrives to live, and with a sense of multitude, applause, and cheers he warms his thoughts. When they have been warmed enough he exhorts, dictates, goes hither and thither on the crutch of the crowd, and places his crutch on the world, and pries on it, if perchance it may be stirred to something. To the bigotry of the man who knows because he speaks for himself has been added a new bigotry on the earth—the bigotry of the man who speaks for the nation ”

“ Strange, that the truth to which all history so strongly testifies should thus be overlooked,—the undeniable truth that religious bigotry and intolerance have been confined to no single sect; that the persecuted of one century have been the persecutors of another. ”

“ Surely it is worth something to feel that there are no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods, to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage. Surely it is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can devise no prison, no dungeon, no cell in which for one instant to confine a thought ”

“ Where will the public find traces of bigotry in anything he has written? He has written against Rome with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his soul, and with all his strength; but as a person may be quite honest, and speak and write against Rome, in like manner he may speak and write against her, and be quite free from bigotry; though it is impossible for any one but a bigot or a bad man to write or speak in her praise ”

“ This was bigotry, the flower and crown of all sins into which man can fall; the worst of all sins, because a man may keep from every other sin with all his might and main, as the Pharisees did, and yet be led by bigotry into almost every one of them without knowing it ”

“ Briefly, then, we dismiss the two opposite dangers of bigotry and fanaticism, bigotry which is a too great vagueness and fanaticism which is a too great concentration. We say that the cure for the bigot is belief; we say that the cure for the idealist is ideas. To know the best theories of existence and to choose the best from them (that is, to the best of our own strong conviction) appears to us the proper way to be neither bigot nor fanatic, but something more firm than a bigot and more terrible than a fanatic, a man with a definite opinion. ”

“ They are, as it were, the dissenters of society—no crime is too bad to be imputed to them; they do not believe the religion of others—they set up a deity of their own vanity—all the orthodox vanities of others are offended. Then comes the bigotry—the stake—the auto-da-fe of scandal. What, alas! is so implacable as the rage of vanity? What so restless as its persecution? Take from a man his fortune, his house, his reputation, but flatter his vanity in each, and he will forgive you. ”

“ Here the cassock and the censer; there the gold-laced uniform and the clank of arms. Here bigotry, hypocritical humility, sighs, and sugary, sanctimonious, unmeaning phrases; there the same odious affectations, although of another kind—swaggering manners, bold, and scornful looks—‘God help the man who dares to insult me!’—padded shoulders, cock-a-hoop defiance. Both the former and the latter class live like parasites on society, and are profoundly conscious of that fact, but fear—especially for their bellies’ sake—to publish it. ”

“ If a man's sentiments and practice in religious matters, appear even absurd, provided society is not injured, what right hath the magistrate to interfere?
The task is as easy to make the stream run upwards, as to form a nation of one mind. We may pronounce with confidence, an age of bigotry is no age of philosophy. ”

“ That the manners of the modern world have indeed become ameliorated, our own brief experience as a society serves to illustrate. A few centuries ago, such an enterprise as ours would never have been attempted, or if undertaken, would have been speedily crushed by the arm of authority or the weight of prejudice. We will not say that bigotry is dead; the fires of persecution still slumber beneath their ashes, and now and then start up into pretty bonfires to amuse the idle crowd ”

“ If the bigot conquers, he will learn in time his mistaken methods (for it is only of the methods and not of the goal of Germany that one can disapprove) —just as the early Christian bigots conquered by bigotry and grew larger in sympathy and tolerance, after conquest I regard the war as one between sisters, between Martha and Mary, the efficient and intolerant against the casual and sympathetic. ”

“ That would be to exemplify the very bigotry in ourselves against which we protest in others. It is only against the importation to our shores, and the obstinate and aggravating perpetuation here, of the local vices, the bad blood, the clannish hates, the separate and inflaming antagonisms of all sorts, which have been the chief sources of the sufferings of these people in the lands from which they came to us. ”

“ We are like a comet, bright at the head but tailing away into mere gas behind. However, every man may speak for himself, and I do not feel that your charge comes home to me. I am only bigoted against bigotry, and that I hold to be as legitimate as violence to the violent. ”

“ Millions of men, women and children, at least one hundred millions of human beings with hopes and loves and aspirations like ourselves, have been sacrificed upon the altar of bigotry. They have perished at the stake, in prisons, by famine and by sword ”

“ Are you sure that, though you may hate bigotry in others, you are not somewhat of a bigot yourself? That you do not look at only one side of a question, and that the one which pleases you? That you do not take up your opinions at second hand, from some book or some newspaper, which after all only reflects your own feelings, your own opinions? You should ask yourselves that question, seriously and often: “Are my thoughts really free?” No one values more highly than I do the advantage of a free press. ”

“ But an acrostic distinction may be drawn. When mysticism predominates over bigotry, we have the grotesque picturesque, and the natural order of words gives us Mab, an appropriate suggestion. But when bigotry has the upper hand, we see Bam, which is just as appropriate; for bigotry nearly always deals with facts and logic so as to require the application of at least one of the minor words by which dishonesty is signified. ”

“ Carpenter. Could anything but the blinding impulse of bigotry induce a man of great intelligence, age, and experience, to confound possibility with certainty in this ridiculous manner—to affirm that because certain individuals can be mesmerized in the American manner, wide awake, but passive creatures of the operator's voice, therefore we should consider all men liable to this condition, and treat all testimony that contravenes our opinions of the course of Nature as the testimony of helpless mesmeric subjects? ”

“ Though armed with the impulses of a giant, and a kind of eloquence that might have kindled enthusiasm in any heart not locked close by superstition, which is the romance of bigotry, he might as well have argued with the rocks on the hills, as attempted that woman's defence before a bigoted jury, and those iron-hearted judges. ”

“ Thus the pedantry of the schools joined hands with the prejudice of the streets, social and political interests combined with national vanity, economic jealousy, scientific sophistry, and religious bigotry to bring into being a movement so utterly incongruous with modern, and especially with German, ideas. ”

“ This early impression it is impossible can ever be erased; imitation, at last, becomes a second nature; in maturer years, reason, in vain, attempts to pull down the firm bulwark of superstition, and narrow-minded bigotry becomes the characteristic of the man. ”

“ In order to examine ourselves throughly, let the case be proposed in the strongest manner. What if I were to see a Papist, an Arian, a Socinian casting out devils? If I did, I could not forbid even him, without convicting myself of bigotry. Yea, if it could be supposed, that I should see a Jew, a Deist, or a Turk doing the same, were I to forbid him either directly or indirectly, I should be no better than a bigot still.
5. O stand clear of this. But be not content with not forbidding any that casts out devils. *’Tis well, to go thus far, but do not stop here. ”

“ It is permitted only on one side, and made the further means of servitude. Even in Christian countries, under arbitrary princes, the people are for the most part as ignorant and implacable bigots as the Turks are. And as it is rare to find a slave who is not a bigot, no man can shew me a bigot who is not an ignorant slave; for bigotry is a slavery of the soul to certain religious opinions, fancies, or stories, of which the bigot knows little or nothing, and damns all that do. ”

“ Let bigotry and intolerance turn their lowering eyes to our bright example, and learn the happy, thrice happy consequences, both to politics and religion, from placing an insuperable bar to that incestuous union, from which, in other lands, such a direful brood of error's monstrous shapes have sprung.
"It is one of the admirable incidents of democracy, that it tends, with a constant influence, to equalize the external condition of man. Perfect equality, indeed, is not within the reach of human effort. ”

“ We are effectually deterred from protesting against any of these ‘wise saws and modern instances’ by the dread of being mixed up with the vulgar, and we dare not avoid the common feelings of humanity lest we should be ridiculed as the dupes of self-love, or of the whining cant of moralists. There is however no bigotry so blind as that which is founded on a supposed exemption from all prejudice. ”

“ The more I consider, the more I am convinced that its study has been upon the whole pernicious to mankind. It is by those details, which are always as unfair in their inference as they must evidently be doubtful in their facts, that party animosity and general prejudice are supported and sustained. There is not one abuse—one intolerance—one remnant of ancient barbarity and ignorance existing at the present day, which is not advocated, and actually confirmed, by some vague deduction from the bigotry of an illiterate chronicler, or the obscurity of an uncertain legend. ”

“ Some day, when bigotry is dead and prejudice no longer has power to blind men's eyes to the truth and pervert their judgment, the just claims of all inspired teachers will be recognized, if not recompensed. ”

“ There is no end of the bigotry and prejudice in the world; one can only shrug one’s shoulders and submit to it. Have you seen the copies they have got down at the club-house in Pall-mall of the groups of horses from the Elgin marbles? ”

“ But, secondly, if anything can tend to revive and keep it up, it is to keep alive the passions of men by ill usage. This is enough to irritate even those who have not a spark of bigotry in their constitution to the most desperate enterprises; it certainly will inflame, darken, and render more dangerous the spirit of bigotry in those who are possessed by it. Lastly, by rooting out any sect, you are never secure against the effects of fanaticism ”

“ But below the interference came Rafe's thoughts. And the one thing of primary importance to him was to get the information on the heat-beam generator to the United States.
No bigotry, no matter how strong, is totally impregnable. Even the most narrow-minded racial bigot will make an exception if a person of the despised race risks his own life to save the life of the bigot or someone the bigot loves. The bigotry doesn't collapse—not by a long shot. ”

“ Much more did I lament, that a people of manners and dispositions so gentle and benevolent, should either be left as they now are, immersed in the gross and uncomfortable blindness of pagan superstition, or permitted to become converts to a system of bigotry and fanaticism; which, without enlightening the mind, often debases the heart. ”

“ Even the mischiefs that might be apprehended from attempts to amend or dissolve establishments, are much aggravated by writers. Much less opposition, I am persuaded, would arise from the source of real bigotry, than from the quarter of interest, and the bigotry that was set in motion by persons who were not themselves bigots. ”

“ "Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed?" ”

“ If it be merely a matter of private opinion,—a question concerning which each one may lawfully adopt his own view,—then, verily, might such a line of conduct be justly termed the most narrow-minded bigotry. We hear a great deal now-a-days about narrow-mindedness on the one hand, and large-heartedness on the other. ”

“ An overstrained bigotry is in itself, and considered in a medical point of view, a destructive irritation of the senses, which draws men away from the efficiency of mental freedom, and peculiarly favours the most injurious emotions. ”

“ Whereas, woe is me, I return in infinitely better humor with the world than I ever was before, and with a most melancholy good opinion and good will for the great mass of my fellow-creatures!"
Free intercourse with men of all parties, he thought, tends to divest a man's mind of party bigotry. ”