Sunday, December 29, 2013 – Tolerating Tolerance
In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher. ~ Dalai Lama
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly – that is the first law of nature. ~ Voltaire
Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton
Tolerance is another word for indifference. ~ W. Somerset Maugham
I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness. ~ Christopher Hitchens
I have seen great intolerance shown in support of tolerance. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Tolerance it a tremendous virtue, but the immediate neighbors of tolerance are apathy and weakness. ~ James Goldsmith
In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair… the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers
I have a zero tolerance for sanctimonious morons who try to scare people. ~ Pat Robertson
When traveling with someone, take large doses of patience and tolerance with your morning coffee. ~ Helen Hayes
The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. ~ George Eliot
Tolerance is a very dull virtue. It is boring. Unlike love, it has always had a bad press. It is negative. It merely means putting up with people, being able to stand things. ~ E. M. Forster
Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding. ~ Agnes Repplier
Broad-mindedness is related to tolerance; open-mindedness is the sibling of peace. ~ Salman Rushdie
Tolerance – the function of an extinguished ardor – tolerance cannot seduce the young. ~ Emile M. Cioran
Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred. ~ Jacques Barzun
Tolerance is you saying something crazy and me smiling and saying, ‘That’s nice.’ ~ Penn Jillette
It is not the simple statement of facts that ushers in freedom; it is the constant repetition of them that has this liberating effect. Tolerance is the result not of enlightenment, but of boredom. ~ Quentin Crisp
Persecution was at least a sign of personal interest. Tolerance is composed of nine parts of apathy to one of brotherly love. ~ Frank Moore Colby
Tolerance is not really a lived virtue; it’s more of a cerebral ascent. ~ Krista Tippett
Religion is like a pair of shoes… Find one that fits for you, but don’t make me wear your shoes. ~ George Carlin
For me, religion is like a rhinoceros: I don’t have one, and I’d really prefer not to be trampled by yours. ~ Silas Sparkhammer
I’m not out to disturb anybody’s faith. I happen to be happy and comfortable with a belief system that has a dual deity and operates on a lunar schedule. It suits my needs. If you happen to be happy and comfortable with a belief system that features a single masculine deity and operates on a solar schedule, fine. I don’t give a fat damn. What matters is what you do, not who’s name you do it in. ~ Mercedes Lackey
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. ~ Joseph Campbell
The test of faith is whether I can make space for difference. Can I recognize God’s image in someone who is not in my image, who language, faith, ideal, are different from mine? If I cannot, then I have made God in my image instead of allowing him to remake me in his. ~ Jonathan Sacks
Love thy enemies, it says in the scriptures. My foster mother always added, “At the very least, you will be polite to them.” ~ Patricia Briggs
It’s a universal law – intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. ~ Thomas Jefferson
If I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do not believe as I believe, and that is all that it proves. ~ Thomas Paine
A man must have a good deal of vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all the doctrines he holds are true, and all he rejects are false. ~ Benjamin Franklin
Of course, we in the West like to pat ourselves on the back and say we’re more tolerant, and we are – but tolerance is not the same thing as acceptance. It just means, “We think you’re crazy and going to hell, but we won’t kill you for it – we’ll tolerate you. But you don’t know who the Man in the Sky is, and we do.” ~ Bill Maher
Don’t be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn’t do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today. ~ Malcolm X
In order to have faith in his own path, he does not need to prove that someone else’s path is wrong. ~ Paulo Coelho
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society… then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them… We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. ~ Karl Popper
Tolerance only for those who agree with you is no tolerance at all. ~ Ray Davis
If you accept others as equals, you embrace them unconditionally, now and forever. But if you let them know that you tolerate them, you suggest in the same breath that they are actually an inconvenience, like a nagging pain or an unpleasant odor you are willing to disregard. ~ Arthur Japin
Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain, Britain. So conform to it, or don’t come here. ~ Tony Blair
Giving freaks a pass is the oldest tradition in Montana. ~ Thomas McGuane
Aren’t you getting tired of people hating one another? What do they think they get out of it? ~ Roger Ebert
The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on… I am not too sure. ~ H. L. Mencken
Just Above Sunset 