A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.

Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.

Our country does not believe in the concept of your God and my God. We believe that all gods are one. We have different ways of accepting Him. All ways lead to Him.

We don’t have to let extremists define us.

The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.

We don’t need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful.

Every religious group, while perhaps a majority somewhere, is also inevitably a minority somewhere else. Thus, religious organizations should and do show tolerance toward members of other religious denominations.

The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.

My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.

A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‚Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?‘ We must always consider the person.

My parents taught me never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion.

Pound’s crazy. All poets are. They have to be. You don’t put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.

If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.

I hope I would not be so arrogant as to doubt anyone’s religion or belief.

Good manners sometimes means simply putting up with other people’s bad manners.

The highest result of education is tolerance.

A saint is tolerant and is attentive to the pleadings of other human beings, not only to spoken messages but to unspoken messages as well.

No religion has mandated killing others as a requirement for its sustenance or promotion.

We have a tendency to condemn people who are different from us, to define their sins as paramount and our own sinfulness as being insignificant.

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

We are not at war against Islam.

Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

No true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate and the law carried the death penalty against atheists, I would begin by sending to the stake whoever denounced another.

All religions must be tolerated… for every man must get to heaven in his own way.

I think tolerance and acceptance and love is something that feeds every community.

I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.

We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.

Liberals are not always so liberal with people who disapprove – disapprove of their point of view.

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

Travel teaches toleration.

Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.

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.

Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe.

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.

So far as the government is concerned, there is only one holy book, which is the constitution of India. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.

America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

If you can’t tolerate critics, don’t do anything new or interesting.

No violent extreme endures.

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Don’t say I hate institutionalised religion – rather than saying I hate those things, which I do not, what I’m saying is that perhaps there is a way of opening more doors, rather than closing so many.

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.

Until you have learned to be tolerant with those who do not always agree with you, you will be neither successful nor happy.

A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.

Whoever seeks to set one religion against another seeks to destroy all religion.

If a man reaches the heart of his own religion, he has reached the heart of the others, too. There is only one God, and there are many paths to him.

God tells us not to judge one another, no matter what anyone’s sexual preferences are or if they’re black, brown or purple.

I find only freedom in the realms of eccentricity.