Intolerance

“ Toleration, in fine, never led to civil war; intolerance has covered the earth with carnage. Choose, then, between these rivals—between the mother who would have her son slain and the mother who yields, provided his life be spared. ”

“ Had this intolerance sprung from a real intensity of conviction it would have been bad enough, but it was accompanied by a scarcely disguised contempt for the intelligence and mental dignity of the common man that makes it far less acceptable to our modern judgments, and which no doubt made it far less acceptable to the free spirits of the time. ”

“ Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection, without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things; and let us reflect, that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. ”

“ The violation of the liberty of conscience is called intolerance; it consists either in employing force to constrain the consciences, or in imputing bad morals or bad motives to those who do not think as we do. The virtue opposed to intolerance is tolerance, a disposition of the soul which consists, not in approving what we think false, but in respecting in others what we wish they should respect in us, namely, conscience. One may also violate individual liberty, the liberty of labor, in keeping one’s fellow-beings in slavery; but slavery is rather a social institution than an individual act. ”

“ I suppose I am a deeply religious man, as men of my quality go, but I hate more and more, as I grow older, the shadow of intolerance cast by religious organisations. All my life has been darkened by irrational intolerance, by arbitrary irrational prohibitions and exclusions. ”

“ You put all that together and you simply get this: tolerance means to let the beliefs and opinions which are contrary to your own go without opposition; whereas, intolerance according to this definition, or meaning of the word, would mean to oppose the beliefs and opinions which are contrary to your own. Now, the question is, should we be tolerant in this sense? Should we be tolerant in the sense of allowing beliefs and opinions which are contrary to our own go without any active opposition on our part? ”

“ We know of no day fitter for terminating long hostilities, and repairing cruel wrongs, than the day on which the religion of mercy was founded. We know of no day fitter for blotting out from the statute-book the last traces of intolerance than the day on which the spirit of intolerance produced the foulest of all judicial murders, the day on which the list of the victims of intolerance, that noble list wherein Socrates and Mole are enrolled, was glorified by a yet greater and holier name. ”

“ Intolerance and its twin brother, Ignorance, weaken and die when the pure white light of wisdom is thrown upon them. Knowledge is the death-knell of intolerance—not mere book-learning, nor education in schools or colleges, nor accumulation of mere statistics, nor shreds of information, but the large sympathetic study of the100 lives, manners, customs, aims, thoughts, struggles, progress, motives and ideals of other ages, other nations, other individuals. ”

“ The duty of following and loving the religion of our country does not go so far as to require us to accept doctrines contrary to good morals, such as intolerance. This horrible doctrine sets men in arms against their fellow-men, and makes them all enemies of mankind. ”

“ How much has reason softened religious persecution and intolerance! Every day do not we become more and more convinced of the crime and cruelty of war? How little is the exercise of arbitrary authority endured! ”

“ Sympathetic, witty or learned in turn, her conversation deeply impressed her hearers, being enriched by such felicities of expression as: "The best lesson of tolerance we have to learn is to tolerate intolerance." ”

“ This spirit of intolerance is yielding to the march of enlightenment, in our own age and day, but still we as a people have suffered severely from its effects, for that alone compelled us to seek a home in these deserts. ”

“ Bigotry and intolerance, which pass as synonymous, are, if rightly considered, a contradiction in terms; for, if in drawing up the articles of our creed, we are blindly bigoted to our impressions and views, utterly disregarding all others, why should we afterwards be so haunted and disturbed by the last, as to wish to exterminate every difference of sentiment with fire and sword? ”

“ The continued manifestation of intolerance has been the most persistent effort in our national life. It has done incalculable harm. It is apparently deep-rooted, an active force in almost every generation. ”

“ Intolerance has caused more people to forsake the ordinances of their childhood than anything else, and those who set the faction going and the flame alight, will have much to answer for, if the day of judgment, which they foretell, ever comes to pass. ”

“ While, then, we shall see great occasion to admire the hardy valour with which this people achieved their deliverance from bondage, we must also be prepared for finding them full of vehement intolerance towards all challenge of their own dogmas and all adherence to alien forms of faith. We shall find them utterly incapable of imagining a conscientious dissent, much less of allowing for and respecting it. ”

“ If these characterizations of intolerance are accurate, it follows that intolerance in the name of religion is a deep betrayal and perversion of the noblest teachings of religion. In short, intolerance is unacceptable in any form and is a sign of weakness and not of strength. ”

“ TOLERANCE AND INTOLERANCE Because religion has in the past protested its own intolerance the most loudly, it is commonly regarded as the field of persecution par excellence. This is so far from being the case that it is just in the field of religion that the greatest liberty has been, after a hard struggle, won. ”

“ The latter part of the sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth century are crowded with controversies and bloodshed; that violence and those animosities which are found so terribly to prevail where religious zeal has been abused for the purposes of intolerance. ”

“ Intolerance, the spirit of violence, are at work among the extremists on both sides, both narrow-minded and ignorant, both asking for trouble, both believing in force rather than in argument, arbitration, and law. In England, by the grace of God and long tradition, there is between these two extremes a great body of middle class, moderate, reasonable, and steady opinion which is the safeguard of the nation against all violent revolution. ”

“ With charity so large yet discriminating, founded on principles which approve themselves to the judgment and the heart, we solemnly protest against every charge of intolerance and bigotry that is brought, by friend or foe, against our National Church. ”

“ Upon the subject of toleration and charity, read a part of the remarkable dialogue from Arthur Helps' Friends in Council:—
Dunsford.—It is hard to be tolerant of intolerant people; to see how natural their intolerance is, and in fact thoroughly to comprehend it and feel for it. This is the last stage of tolerance, which few men, I suppose, in this world attain. ”

“ The second excess into which Christianity, under the action of frail human nature, easily ran was intolerance. This intolerance, as in the previous case, is only a virtue run to seed; for, as all asceticism is merely a misapplication or an exaggeration of the virtue of self-denial and self-control, so all intolerance, or defect of kindly regard to the contrary in opinion or conduct, is merely a crude or an impolitic extension of the imperative ought which lies at the root of all moral truth, and specially of all monotheistic religions. ”

“ By taking vigorous action in this matter, you would do more for the cause of real temperance and hearten those people who feel the sting of the wave of intolerance which is now spreading over the country than anything you could think of. ”

“ None but those who do not care about opinions, will confound this with intolerance. Those, who having opinions which they hold to be immensely important, and their contraries to be prodigiously hurtful, have any deep regard for the general good, will necessarily dislike, as a class and in the abstract, those who think wrong what they think right, and right what they think wrong: though they need not therefore be, nor was my father, insensible to good qualities in an opponent, nor governed in their estimation of individuals by one general presumption, instead of by the whole of their character. ”

“ Toleration is not the opposite of Intolerance, but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding Liberty of Conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the Pope armed with fire and faggot, and the other is the Pope selling or granting indulgences. The former is church and state, and the latter is church and traffic. ”

“ There are those who do, and their own words testify to their intolerance. For example, because the Moral Majority has worked with members of different denomination, one fundamentalist group has denounced Dr. ”

“ THE INTOLERANCE, DICTATORIALNESS AND CONSERVATISM OF CROWDS. Crowds are only cognisant of simple and extreme sentiments; the opinions, ideas, and beliefs suggested to them are accepted or rejected as a whole, and considered as absolute truths or as not less absolute errors. This is always the case with beliefs induced by a process of suggestion instead of engendered by reasoning. Every one is aware of the intolerance that accompanies religious beliefs, and of the despotic empire they exercise on men's minds. ”

“ Intolerance itself is a form of egoism, and to condemn egoism intolerantly is to share it. ”

“ Reflect on the frightful consequences of the right of intolerance. If it were allowed to despoil, cast in prison, and put to death a citizen who, at a certain degree of latitude, would not profess the religion generally admitted at that degree, how could we except the leaders of the State from those penalties? Religion equally binds the monarch and the beggar ”

“ An answer rises to the lip instanter, but is no sooner given than perceived to be invalid. A like closeness of relation exists between the virtue of intolerance and the vice of intolerance, a synonym of which is bigotry. ”

“ The present one is perhaps of a tenor to silence some calumniators, but I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others. ”

“ Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale. ”

“ These are thoughts which have petrified in the minds of many into self-evident principles, with all the obstinacy of intolerance. It is not difficult to recognize in it the old reproach we have already dealt with, it is here in a slightly different form. ”

“ It is this particular variety of intolerance which makes parents shake their heads over the foolish behavior of their children, which has caused the absurd myth of “the good old days”; which makes savages and civilized creatures wear uncomfortable clothes; which fills the world with a great deal of superfluous nonsense and generally turns all people with a new idea into the supposed enemies of mankind.
Otherwise, however, this sort of intolerance is comparatively harmless. ”

“ Intolerance believes it is born with the peculiar talent for managing the affairs of others, without any knowledge of the details, better than the men themselves, who are giving their life's thought to the vital questions. ”

“ Violence is seen as a major problem but what is it that provokes the violence? Intolerance. An intolerant husband unable to tolerate the slightest deviation from his authority over his wife or his children. Intolerance between individuals from different castes. Intolerance culminating in communal violence. If you examine closely the social problems throughout the world, you will find at their roots the presence of intolerance.
Intolerance is an error which breeds political disorder
Intolerance is an error of thought and action which breeds political disorder. ”

“ There must be absolute religious liberty, for tyranny and intolerance are as abhorrent in matters intellectual and spiritual as in matters political and material; and more and more we must all realize that conduct is of infinitely greater importance than dogma. ”

“ It is fraternity, the spirit, of religion well understood.... It is at bottom humility, the idea that others are not worthless, that others are as good as ourselves.... Intolerance is pride; it is the idea that we are better than others ”

“ And ever since there has been open warfare between those who depend for their livelihood upon some established form [150] of worship and those whose ideas threaten to take the crowd away from one temple in favor of another.
When we attempt to discuss the intolerance of the Middle Ages, we must constantly remember that we have to deal with a very complicated problem. Only upon very rare occasions do we find ourselves confronted with only one manifestation of these three separate forms of intolerance. ”

“ At the same time, in our efforts to adjust differences of opinion we should be free from intolerance or passion, and our judgments should be unmoved by alluring phrases and unvexed by selfish interests. ”

“ That statements of this kind should have been made by men of distinction in educational circles and should have passed current so long, is only additional evidence of an intolerant spirit in those who least suspect it in themselves and are most ready to deprecate intolerance in others. ”