Tolerance - christiansquoting.org.uk

The way to disarm any idea is to tolerate it.

Tolerance to all faiths is obedience to none.

There is a rule in sailing that the more maneuverable ship should give way to the less maneuverable. I think this is sometimes a good rule to follow in human relations as well. -- Joyce Brothers

There are those who believe something, and therefore will tolerate nothing; and on the other hand, those who tolerate everything, because they believe nothing. -R. Browning

There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.-G.K. Chesterton

These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own. G.K. Chesterton

Creeds must disagree: it is the whole fun of the thing. If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue humanely, we may argue with great mutual benefit; but, obviously, we must argue. Modern toleration is really a tyranny. It is a tyranny because it is a silence. To say that I must not deny my opponent's faith is to say I must not discuss it . . . It is absurd to have a discussion on Comparative Religions if you don't compare them. -- G K Chesterton

Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. -- G. K. Chesterton(1874-1936)

In the clash of civilizations, the West seems bent on unilateral disarmament -- that is, unless people are willing to risk being ostracized by their neighbors who have a badly misshapen notion of tolerance. But thatís exactly what Christians are called to do -- speak the truth in love. - Chuck Colson, BreakPoint, 16 May 2002

Tolerance used to mean an open market for the free discussion of everyone's truth claims&emdash;not anymore. Over the past few decades, it has been redefined to be the notion that not only should I have the right to do what I want to do, but you have to approve of it, as well.- "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" 2 May 2003

Tolerance does not...do anything, embrace anyone, champion any issue. It wipes the notes off the score of life and replaces them with one long bar of rest. It does not attack error, it does not champion truth, it does not hate evil, it does not love good.--Walter Farrell, _The Looking Glass_, 1951

Toleration is a good thing in its place; but you cannot tolerate what will not tolerate you, and is trying to cut your throat. J. A. Froude

I respect those who resist me; but I cannot tolerate them.- Charles De Gaulle (1890-1970) In "The Ultimate Success Quotations Library," by http://www.cyber-nation.com, 1997.

One hears endless calls for 'tolerance' and 'civility'. But those calls invariable ask Christians to be 'tolerant' and 'civil' about being gagged in public life. No one seems to ask, in the name of pluralism, that the atheist 'tolerate' the creche. No, the civility is all on one side and the toleration is a sham--in which Christians are complicit so long as they play by the current misconceived rules. So, yes, Virginia (and Rhode Island and Jersey City and Pittsburgh and Scranton)...'tis the season to fight injunctions. Christmas (or Hanukkah or Ramadan) is only truly worth celebrating when Christians (or Jews or Muslims) can proclaim--even on the public square--their unadulterated message. That is what American religious freedom is about, not about holiday scenes that hid Jesus in his manger behind the jolly snowman Frosty and the red-nosed reindeer Rudolph. -- John Grondelski, Seton Hall professor of Christian ethics, quoted _First Things, Dec. 2000

Now there sits a man with an open mind. You can feel the draft from here.-- Groucho Marx, on Chico Marx

Tolerance is only another name for indifference. -- W. Somerset Maugham A Writer's Notebook

One of the paradoxes of liberal societies arises from the commitment to tolerance. A society committed to respecting the viewpoints and customs of diverse people within a pluralistic society inevitably encounters this challenge: will you tolerate those who themselves do not agree to respect the viewpoints or customs of others? Paradoxically, the liberal commitment to tolerance requires, at some point, intolerance for those who would reject that very commitment. - Minow, M. (1990). Putting up and putting down: Tolerance reconsidered. Osgoode Hall Law Journal, 28, 409-448.

Toleration is not the *opposite* of intoleration, 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.
Thomas Paine, _Rights of Man_

I hate people who are intolerant.~ Laurence J. Peter.

It is easy to be tolerant when you do not care. Clement F. Rogers

No totalitarian authority nor authoritarian state can tolerate those who have an absolute by which to judge that state and its actions. -- Francis Schaeffer

Historically, then, tolerance was the liberal, secular answer to the inability of conservative religionists to compromise with those who differed from them. Tolerance, in this sense, is relatively new, not something even thought desirable through most of human history. After all, why tolerate error? This is precisely what tolerance requires of us. Genuine tolerance, as opposed to its pale counterfeits, requires us to allow those who espouse or live out ideas we think wrong, perhaps even harmful, not only to do so but also to try to persuade others to do the same. - Daniel Taylor, Deconstructing the gospel of tolerance., Christianity Today. January 11, 1999 Vol. 43, No. 1, Page 42. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/9t1/9t1042.html

... one is not tolerant of something unless one objects to it. I do not tolerate something I either accept or am indifferent to, because it requires nothing of me. Most social liberals, for instance, cannot rightfully be said to be tolerant regarding homosexual behavior since they have no objection to it. You do not have to tolerate that which you accept or affirm. If you want to know whether a liberal is tolerant, ask what he or she thinks of Jesse Helms or Pat Robertson or Kenneth Starr.
If tolerance requires an initial objection, then conservatives, ironically, may be much more tolerant than liberals, because there are so many more things to which they object. The least tolerant person is the person who accepts everything, because such a person is not required to overcome any internal objections. To paraphrase G. K. Chesterton, turnips are singularly tolerant. - Daniel Taylor, Deconstructing the gospel of tolerance., Christianity Today. January 11, 1999 Vol. 43, No. 1, Page 42.

Too much of what passes as tolerance in America is not the result of principled judgment but is simple moral indifference. Daniel Taylor, Deconstructing the gospel of tolerance., Christianity Today. January 11, 1999 Vol. 43, No. 1, Page 42.

If I would stop something if I could, but am powerless to do so, I am not tolerant, merely impotent. True tolerance means I voluntarily withhold what power I have to coerce someone else's behavior. Daniel Taylor, Deconstructing the gospel of tolerance., Christianity Today. January 11, 1999 Vol. 43, No. 1, Page 42.

The intolerant person is the one thing that cannot be tolerated, the one person who must be shamed or silenced. A guest commentator on National Public Radio shocked even his progressive hosts, but spoke for many, when he objected to the Southern Baptist belief that a lot of people are going to hell: "The evaporation of 4 million [people] who believe in this crap would leave the world a better place." (It's comforting to see that the dreaded Religious Right is not the only source of intolerance in our society.) Daniel Taylor, Deconstructing the gospel of tolerance., Christianity Today. January 11, 1999 Vol. 43, No. 1, Page 42.

Nevertheless‚ - and here's the rub‚ - it is widely acknowledged that no moral person tolerates everything. For some, the intolerable grows largely from issues of justice and fairness‚ - racism, sexism, homophobia, economic inequity. Such people are divided on an issue like pornography, where values that they hold with equal passion‚ - freedom of expression versus ending the exploitation of women‚ - collide. Given that everyone agrees that some things should not be tolerated, the real issue should not be whether one is tolerant or intolerant, but what's included on one's list. Daniel Taylor, Deconstructing the gospel of tolerance., Christianity Today. January 11, 1999 Vol. 43, No. 1, Page 42.

No man has a right in America to treat any other man "tolerantly" for tolerance is the assumption of superiority. Our liberties are equal rights of every citizen. Wendell L. Willkie