Quotes about Tolerance

we have developed a corollary that is neither love nor forgiveness—namely, tolerance. The problem with this is clear: I can "tolerate" you without it costing me anything very much. I can shrug my shoulders, walk away, and leave you to do your own thing. That, admittedly, is preferable to my taking you by the throat and shaking you until you agree with me. But it is certainly not love.

Like the Hindu in Belfast who was asked whether he was a Catholic Hindu or a Protestant Hindu, those of us who follow this fresh reading of the New Testament want to say to our critics right and left, 'Don't imagine that because we don't check all your fundamentalist boxes, we must be modernists, or that because we don't check all your modernist boxes, we must be fundamentalists.

It is an interesting observation on today's religious climate that many people now get every bit as steamed up about insisting that 'all religions are just the same' as the older dogmaticians did about insisting on particular formulations and interpretations. The dogma that all dogmas are wrong, the monolithic insistence that all monolithic systems are to be rejected, has taken hold of the popular imagination at a level far beyond rational or logical discourse.

We applaud patience but prefer it to be a virtue that others possess.

Gamaliel, at least as portrayed in Acts, advocated the policy of "live and let live." If people wanted to follow this man Jesus, they could do so.9 If this new movement was from God, it would prosper; if not, it would fall by its own weight. If the Romans wanted to run the world, so be it. Jews would study and practice the Torah by themselves. This, broadly speaking, had been the teaching of Hillel, a leading rabbi of the previous generation.

Saying "It's true for you" sounds fine and tolerant. But it only works because it's twisting the word "true" to mean, not "a true revelation of the way things are in the real world," but "something that is genuinely happening inside you.

I think "tolerance" is being seen for what it is, a low-grade post-Enlightenment version of "love." It is often remarked that those who hail the word "tolerance" regularly become intolerant of all other views, just as those who champion "inclusivity" regularly become increasingly exclusive toward worldviews other than their own.

He does not here ask the different groups to give up their practices; merely not to judge one another where differences exist. As Paul well knew (though we sometimes forget), this is actually just as large a step, if not larger, than a change in practice itself. The move from regarding something as mandatory to regarding it as optional is vast, just as vast in fact as the move from regarding something as forbidden to regarding it as available.

But don't you see that as an inconsistency in your views?" the young man asked. Dawkins replied, "I sort of do, yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with, otherwise life would be intolerable.

ironically the term tolerance is used to justify intolerance toward Christianity.

I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his kin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than the opposite.

People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite