39 Thoughtful Quotes On Tolerance

In a world that often feels divided and tumultuous, the virtue of tolerance stands as a beacon of hope, guiding us toward understanding and unity. Embracing tolerance allows us to appreciate differences, foster compassion, and build bridges across cultural and ideological divides. This collection of 39 thoughtfully curated quotes invites reflection on the nuances and richness that tolerance brings to our lives. Each quote offers a unique perspective, encouraging us to open our hearts and minds to the diverse experiences that color our world. Whether you're seeking inspiration or looking to deepen your commitment to empathy and openness, these quotes serve as a reminder of the beauty found in embracing diversity.

1. “Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these.” - George Washington Carver

2. “As you walk, hop, hobble, or wheelMeeting people of different kinds, Remember that being handicappedIs only a state of mind” - Stephen Cosgrove

3. “Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.” - Voltaire

4. “Rien n'est plus intolérable que la tolérance de l'intolérance surtout si cette dernière est basée sur l'ignorance et si, en outre, elle s'accompagne de censure et d'intimidation” - Mahdi Elmandjra

5. “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

6. “Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. 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

7. “Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda. Our mission, therefore, is to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity. Racism can, will, and must be defeated.” - Kofi Annan

8. “It's an 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 I. Solzhenitsyn

9. “Nowadays, you can do anything that you want—anal, oral, fisting—but you need to be wearing gloves, condoms, protection.” - Slavoj Žižek

10. “Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth.” - Theodore Roosevelt

11. “War can condition a person to be resilient, tolerant, dependable, strong, and capable of so much more than one who had experienced nothing of it; it can bring out the very best in us, but also the very worst. Where is it, I ask, the proper conduit through which a soldier should be raised from whence they would become an upstanding citizen of the world, instead of a single country?” - Mike Norton

12. “Islam teaches tolerance, not hatred; universal brotherhood, not enmity; peace, and not violence.” - Parwez Musharraf

13. “All of the world's religions have important things to teach us, and they are not as different from each other as some would have you believe.” - Kent Allan Rees

14. “Don't get so tolerant that you tolerate intolerance.” - Bill Maher

15. “I have always known that the best of the Saracens could out-Christian many of us Christians.” - Ellis Peters

16. “The question has often been asked; Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy? It does not matter what you call it. Buddhism remains what it is whatever label you may put on it. The label is immaterial. Even the label 'Buddhism' which we give to the teachings of the Buddha is of little importance. The name one gives is inessential.... In the same way Truth needs no label: it is neither Buddhist, Christian, Hindu nor Moslem. It is not the monopoly of anybody. Sectarian labels are a hindrance to the independent understanding of Truth, and they produce harmful prejudices in men's minds.” - Walpola Rahula

17. “Bahujanahitāya bahujanasukhāya lokānukampāya:For the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world.” - Gautama Buddha

18. “It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.” - Herman Hesse

19. “Tolerância universal é indiferença. Quem tolera tudo, é porque não se importa com nada'.” - Rubem Alves

20. “Die Religionen Müsen alle Tolleriret werden und Mus der fiscal nuhr das auge darauf haben, das keine der andern abruch Tuhe, den hier mus ein jeder nach Seiner Fasson Selich werden!"[Rand-Verfügung des Königs zum Immediat-Bericht des Geistlichen Departements: Katholische Schulen und Proselytenmacherei; Berlin, 22. Mai 1740]” - Frederick The Great

21. “Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. […] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.” - Gene Roddenberry

22. “You solve it as you get older, when you reach the point where you've tasted so much that you can somehow sacrifice certain things more easily, and you have a more tolerant view of things like possessiveness (your own) and a broader acceptance of the pains and the losses.” - Ted Hughes

23. “Razmišljam i ja ponekad o svom poreklu, naravno, ali pritom ne vidim bogomolje, simbole, ni šarene pantljike folklora kojima se kite konji Pripadnosti... (...) Razmišljam i ja ponekad o svom poreklu, naravno, ali naše Porodično Stablo vidim samo kao mladicu na obodu Velike Šume...Zamrznem tako likove na tajnoj večeri u bezimenoj podkarpatskoj gostionici, Sluge i Gospodare, Silne i Prepadnute, Lukave, Priglupe, Sretne...I mislim: koji je moj? Čiji sam ja to? Na talasima čije krvi penušaju mehurići moje embrionske duše, i u čijim se venama, a da grešan ni ne sluti, koprcaju kao punoglavci moja čula i tkiva, moj fosforni skelet, i usplahireno jato mladeža?Ali ne brinem puno o tome da li je Taj bio Srbin, Tatarin, Kozak?Ni da li se krstio, klanjao, pisao s leva na desno?Ne...Brinem jedino da nije bio podlac?Palikuća?Bratoubica?Ili je neko ko je sekao srce na kriške, da bude za sve...Neko kog su uvek pitali kad o čemu treba presuditi...I neko kome se i Bog obradovao kao dragom rođaku...Kada mu je umoran zakucao na Nebo...” - Đorđe Balašević

24. “If a couple of gay guys want to throw the gayest, most fabulous wedding of all time, the only way it should offend you is if you weren’t invited.” - Orlando Winters

25. “Don't fret, boy. I'm not so foolish as to ridicule the myths and legends of other people. For countless generations, people, no matter where they're from, have been trying to understand this world of ours.” - Nahoko Uehashi

26. “the underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us...” - Barack Obama

27. “Be nice. And if you can't do that, just don't be mean.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

28. “People fail each other all the time, Mo, and they forgive each other, and start again. It's a question of knowing the other person's limitations. Knowing what's fair to expect of them. Knowing what's fair for them to expect of you.” - Erica O'Rourke

29. “Every second you spend holding someone else back is time not running the race yourself.” - Rebecca Murphy

30. “Tolerance isn't about not having beliefs. It's about how your beliefs lead you to treat people who disagree with you.” - Timothy Keller

31. “Never complain about what you permit to be.” - Orrin Woodward

32. “Broadmindedness, when it means indifference to right and wrong, eventually ends in a hatred of what is right.” - Fulton J. Sheen

33. “Love of God thus becomes the dominant passion of life; like every other worth-while love, it demands and inspires sacrifice. But love of God and man, as an ideal, has lately been replaced by the new ideal of tolerance which inspires no sacrifice. Why should any human being in the world be merely tolerated? What man has ever made a sacrifice in the name of tolerance? It leads men, instead, to express their own egotism in a book or a lecture that patronizes the downtrodden group. One of the cruelest things that can happen to a human being is to be tolerated. Never once did Our Lord say, “Tolerate your enemies!” But He did say, “Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you” (Matt. 5:44). Such love can be achieved only if we deliberately curb our fallen nature’s animosities.” - Fulton J. Sheen

34. “In some cases, I am able to respect what so many call bigots. Such people have a more solid foundation for drawing their lines when it comes to the security of their ways and quite possibly the security of mankind. They rely on something that has worked to get man this far without placing ideals blindly driven by emotion first; they have a sure line and they say, 'No.' That, in a sense, is something I find to be highly respectable.” - Criss Jami

35. “Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil … a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons … never to truth. Tolerance applies to the erring, intolerance to the error … Architects are as intolerant about sand as foundations for skyscrapers as doctors are intolerant about germs in the laboratory. Tolerance does not apply to truth or principles. About these things we must be intolerant, and for this kind of intolerance, so much needed to rouse us from sentimental gush, I make a plea. Intolerance of this kind is the foundation of all stability.” - Fulton J. Sheen

36. “Any religion can be compared to the attic of an old home. Unless the attic is regularly cleaned, it gathers dust and cobwebs and eventually becomes unusable. Similarly, if a religion cannot be updated or cleaned from time to time, it loses its usefulness and cannot relate anymore to changed times and people.” - Swami Bhaskarananda

37. “When we look back, it becomes clear that the acts and accomplishments of human beings are the signatures of history. Human signatures have created an enormous chasm between the joyeous light of the age of the Renaissance to the dark shadow of September 11, 2001. Those of us living on that fateful day experienced the lower depths of mankind. As an author, avid reader, world traveler, and person of enormous curiosity, my life experiences have taught me that discord often erupts from a lack of knowledge and education. To discourage future dark moments, I believe we must nourish the minds of our young with learning that creates understanding between ethnic and religious groups. Perhaps understanding will lead to a marvelous day when we take a last fleeting look at violence so harmful to so many. I sincerely believe that nothing will further the cause of peace more than the education of our young. I would like for readers to know that a percentage of the profits from the sale of this book will be devoted to the cause of education.May all roads lead to peace.” - Jean Sasson

38. “All I require of a religion is that it be tolerant of those who do not agree with it.” - Roger Ebert

39. “If our goal is to be tolerant of people who are different than we are, Chase, then we really are aiming quite low. Traffic jams are to be tolerated. People are to be celebrated.” - Glennon Melton