Tolerance quotes

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”

The advice combines generosity with judgment: goodwill can be broad while trust remains selective.

Source note: All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 1, Scene 1; the Countess gives Bertram compact advice about conduct before he leaves.

“With malice toward none; with charity for all.”

The phrase argues for moral seriousness without revenge, especially after collective conflict.

Source note: Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.

“My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”

Paine places moral allegiance beyond national or sectarian identity, presenting humanity at large and practical good-doing as more fundamental than loyalty to a particular place or religious label.

Source note: Rights of Man, Part II, Project Gutenberg public-domain collection #3742. The line appears in Paine’s statement of independence from place or person while criticizing hereditary political privilege. The exact text is “my country is the world, and my religion is to do good,” not the later expanded attribution “all mankind are my brethren.”

“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”

A simple test for conduct is to consider whether we would accept the same treatment if our positions were reversed.

Source note: The Analects of Confucius, James Legge’s public-domain English translation; Book XV gives the maxim as a concise rule for conduct toward others.

“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.”

Understanding a position requires serious contact with competing arguments; familiarity with only one side can produce confidence without real comprehension.

Source note: On Liberty, Chapter 2; Mill argues for open discussion because opposing views expose weaknesses and sharpen understanding.

“One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”

People often mistake their own preferences for universal standards, while real understanding requires room for different tastes and experiences.

Source note: The observation follows disagreement about what different people enjoy and value.

“Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them.”

Human interdependence creates two practical choices when others fall short: help them learn when possible, or practice patient endurance when change is unavailable.

Source note: Meditations, Book VIII; George Long translation in Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

“Error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it.”

Jefferson argues that political disagreement need not be suppressed when open reasoning remains available to challenge error, treating free contest rather than coercion as the safer response to mistaken opinion.

Source note: First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801; the wording is preserved by Monticello’s Jefferson Quotes & Family Letters from Jefferson’s manuscript and contemporary printing. The surrounding address condemns political intolerance and says differences of opinion are not always differences of principle.

“For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule.”

Retaliation tends to reproduce hostility, while refusing to answer hatred with hatred creates the possibility of ending the cycle rather than extending it.

Source note: Dhammapada, early verses in Max Müller’s translation; the passage contrasts retaliation with non-hatred.

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”

Thoreau imagines perspective-taking as a radical expansion of experience: seeing even briefly from another person’s position can expose how narrow one’s own habitual viewpoint is.

Source note: Walden, “The Bean-Field,” Project Gutenberg #205. Thoreau follows the question by imagining living through other ages and worlds in an hour; the passage is about the variety of human experience and the limits of judging what another life can contain.

“Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?”

Milton argues that confidence in truth should make room for open contest rather than prior censorship: ideas gain strength by being tested publicly against what may be false.

Source note: Areopagitica, Project Gutenberg #608. The sentence appears in Milton’s argument against licensing and prior restraint on printing. It is a defense of open intellectual encounter, not a claim that every expression is harmless or beyond later judgment.

“I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.”

Washington frames refusal to hate as protection of his own moral agency: another person’s prejudice or wrongdoing should not be allowed to dictate the emotional character of his inner life.

Source note: Up from Slavery, Chapter XI, “Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them,” Project Gutenberg #2376. Washington says he learned from General Armstrong to reject racial hatred and applies that lesson specifically to hostility and wrongs inflicted on Black Americans; the historical context remains explicit rather than becoming generic advice to ignore mistreatment.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”

Twain closes the journey by arguing that sustained contact with unfamiliar people and places can challenge inherited assumptions and provincial judgments.

Source note: The Innocents Abroad, concluding paragraph; Twain summarizes what he believes extended travel can do to prejudice and narrow social perspective.

“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.”

Bacon describes reading as active judgment rather than passive agreement or reflexive opposition, making careful consideration the central habit of serious study.

Source note: Of Studies, in Bacon’s instructions for how different kinds of books should be read.

“Faith, therefore, allows the greatest latitude in philosophic speculation, allowing us without blame to think what we like about anything.”

Spinoza separates faithful conduct from enforced uniformity of speculation: people can differ widely in philosophical belief while still being judged by whether their teaching leads toward justice and charity rather than hatred.

Source note: A Theologico-Political Treatise, Part III, Chapter XIV, Project Gutenberg #991. The sentence is followed by Spinoza’s distinction between opinions that foster obstinacy, hatred and strife and those that support justice and charity.

“Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

The conclusion links breadth of judgment with exposure beyond one familiar setting, arguing that charitable understanding requires experience of a wider world.

Source note: The Innocents Abroad, concluding paragraph immediately following Twain’s statement that travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.”

Washington rejects the idea that religious liberty is a favor granted by a dominant group: the stronger claim is that conscience belongs to citizens as an inherent right rather than by another group’s permission.

Source note: Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, August 18, 1790, Founders Online. Washington follows this by saying the United States government gives “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” The record is historical civic-religious argument, not evidence that the period had already achieved equal liberty in practice.

“What is toleration? It is the appurtenance of humanity. We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies—it is the first law of nature.”

Voltaire begins toleration from shared human fallibility: recognizing that everyone is capable of error weakens the claim that disagreement should be answered with persecution.

Source note: A Philosophical Dictionary, article “Toleration,” Project Gutenberg #35630. The section moves immediately into examples of people from different religious traditions trading together without attacking one another, placing the maxim inside Voltaire’s campaign against religious persecution.

“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

Mill makes the number of people holding an opinion irrelevant to their right to silence dissent: minority speech remains worth protecting even when nearly everyone else believes it wrong.

Source note: On Liberty, Chapter II, Project Gutenberg #34901. Mill’s next argument is epistemic as well as political: suppressing an opinion can deprive everyone of truth or of the clearer understanding created when truth is tested against error.

“The toleration of those that differ from others in matters of religion is so agreeable to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to the genuine reason of mankind, that it seems monstrous for men to be so blind as not to perceive the necessity and advantage of it in so clear a light.”

Locke argues that religious difference should not by itself justify coercion or persecution, grounding toleration both in his reading of Christianity and in a broader appeal to human reason.

Source note: A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), public-domain text also preserved in The Works of John Locke. Locke immediately distinguishes civil government from religion and argues that persecution should not be disguised as care for souls. His historical position had limits, so this page does not present the letter as a complete modern theory of equal religious freedom.