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Intolerance Quotes

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Intolerance Quotes

“Father Brendan Flynn: "A woman was gossiping with her friend about a man whom they hardly knew - I know none of you have ever done this. That night, she had a dream: a great hand appeared over her and pointed down on her. She was immediately seized with an overwhelming sense of guilt. The next day she went to confession. She got the old parish priest, Father O' Rourke, and she told him the whole thing. 'Is gossiping a sin?' she asked the old man. 'Was that God All Mighty's hand pointing down at me? Should I ask for your absolution? Father, have I done something wrong?' 'Yes,' Father O' Rourke answered her. 'Yes, you ignorant, badly-brought-up female. You have blamed false witness on your neighbor. You played fast and loose with his reputation, and you should be heartily ashamed.' So, the woman said she was sorry, and asked for forgiveness. 'Not so fast,' says O' Rourke. 'I want you to go home, take a pillow upon your roof, cut it open with a knife, and return here to me.' So, the woman went home: took a pillow off her bed, a knife from the drawer, went up the fire escape to her roof, and stabbed the pillow. Then she went back to the old parish priest as instructed. 'Did you gut the pillow with a knife?' he says. 'Yes, Father.' 'And what were the results?' 'Feathers,' she said. 'Feathers?' he repeated. 'Feathers; everywhere, Father.' 'Now I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out onto the wind,' 'Well,' she said, 'it can't be done. I don't know where they went. The wind took them all over.' 'And that,' said Father O' Rourke, 'is gossip!”

PeopleLifeInspirationalWisdomTruthReligionDifferencesDoubtPsychologyHuman NatureMoralityGayRespectToleranceMoviePrivacyLgbtGossipWrongIntoleranceRightHomosexualPersecutionSlanderViceProverbial WisdomSermonVirtues And VicesTolerance RespectSocial DiseaseHuman DifferencesFather FlynnPhilip Seymour Hoffmann
Book:Doubt, a Parable
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“The Song of Naskar (Sonnet 2764) I'm always eager to respond to human curiosity, but I have no time to entertain ape gossip. I don't engage with fanatics, for the same reason I don't consume alcohol, it's a ridiculous waste of brain cells. For those who matter to me, I'll go out of my way to explain myself, if there is misunderstanding, in fact, my brain would remain anxious till we make up. To burn the bridges with dehumanizers is the first requirement of civilization - don't waste your brainpower dignifying bigots, redirect all your neurochemical electricity to power a new world, nonchalant to accusations. Existence is the mightiest revolt against prejudice, irrelevance is the loudest response to inhumanity.”

HonestyPrejudiceCriticsBigotryIntoleranceBraveheartBigotsDehumanizationHaters Gonna HateBurning Bridges
Book:Nazmahal: Palace of Grace
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“And so how does Um-Helat exist? How can such a city possibly survive, let alone thrive? Wealthy with no poor, advanced with no war, a beautiful place where all souls know themselves beautiful . . . It cannot be, you say. Utopia? How banal. It’s a fairy tale, a thought exercise. Crabs in a barrel, dog-eat-dog, oppression Olympics—it would not last, you insist. It could never be in the first place. Racism is natural, so natural that we will call it “tribalism” to insinuate that everyone does it. Sexism is natural and homophobia is natural and religious intolerance is natural and greed is natural and cruelty is natural and savagery and fear and and and . . . and. “Impossible!” you hiss, your fists slowly clenching at your sides. “How dare you. What have these people done to make you believe such lies? What are you doing to me, to suggest that it is possible? How dare you. How dare you.” Oh, friend! I fear I have offended. My apologies. Yet . . . how else can I convey Um-Helat to you, when even the thought of a happy, just society raises your ire so? Though I confess I am puzzled as to why you are so angry. It’s almost as if you feel threatened by the very idea of equality. Almost as if some part of you needs to be angry. Needs unhappiness and injustice. But . . . do you? Do you?”

WealthBeautyRacismInjusticeEqualityUnhappinessIntoleranceUtopiaHomophobia
Book:How Long 'til Black Future Month?
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“ALL kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death with reasonable serenity. As a rule, there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any discredit on his profession. The murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest on either side, smilingly exhorts the multitude to meet him in heaven. The man who has succeeded in making his home a hell, meets death without a quiver, provided he has never expressed any doubt as to the divinity of Christ, or the eternal "procession" of the Holy Ghost. The king who has waged cruel and useless war, who has filled countries with widows and fatherless children, with the maimed and diseased, and who has succeeded in offering to the Moloch of ambition the best and bravest of his subjects, dies like a saint. All the believing kings are in heaven—all the doubting philosophers in perdition. All the persecutors sleep in peace, and the ashes of those who burned their brothers, sleep in consecrated ground. Libraries could hardly contain the names of the Christian wretches who have filled the world with violence and death in defence of book and creed, and yet they all died the death of the righteous, and no priest, no minister, describes the agony and fear, the remorse and horror with which their guilty souls were filled in the last moments of their lives. These men had never doubted—they had never thought—they accepted the creed as they did the fashion of their clothes. They were not infidels, they could not be—they had been baptized, they had not denied the divinity of Christ, they had partaken of the "last supper." They respected priests, they admitted that Christ had two natures and the same number of wills; they admitted that the Holy Ghost had "proceeded," and that, according to the multiplication table of heaven, once one is three, and three times one is one, and these things put pillows beneath their heads and covered them with the drapery of peace. They admitted that while kings and priests did nothing worse than to make their fellows wretched, that so long as they only butchered and burnt the innocent and helpless, God would maintain the strictest neutrality; but when some honest man, some great and tender soul, expressed a doubt as to the truth of the Scriptures, or prayed to the wrong God, or to the right one by the wrong name, then the real God leaped like a wounded tiger upon his victim, and from his quivering flesh tore his wretched soul.”

GodDeathEvilJusticeDoubtAtheismHypocrisyIntoleranceAgnosticism
Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 3 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures
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“Desire for goodness, Mister Reese, leads to earnestness. Earnestness in turn leads to sanctimonious self-righteousness, which breeds intolerance, upon which harsh judgment quickly follows, yielding dire punishment, inflicting general terror and paranoia, eventually culminating in revolt, leading to chaos, then dissolution, and thus, the end of civilisation.” He slowly turned, looked down upon Emancipor. “And we are creatures dependent upon civilisation. It is the only environment in which we can thrive.” Emancipor frowned. “The desire for goodness leads to the end of civilisation?” “Precisely, Mister Reese.” “But if the principal aim is to achieve good living and health among the populace, what is the harm in that?” Bauchelain sighed. “Very well, I shall try again. Good living and health, as you say, yielding well-being. But well-being is a contextual notion, a relative notion. Perceived benefits are measured by way of contrast. In any case, the result is smugness, and from that an overwhelming desire to deliver conformity among those perceived as less pure, less fortunate—the unenlightened, if you will. But conformity leads to ennui, and then indifference. From indifference, Mister Reese, dissolution follows as a natural course, and with it, once again, the end of civilisation.”

CivilizationGoodnessIntolerance
Book:Bauchelain and Korbal Broach
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“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.”

BeliefMankindRespectEmotionsFoundationConvictionToleranceCertaintyBigotryIntolerance
Book:Killosophy
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“Intolerance in the 23rd century? Improbable! If man survives that long, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life's exciting variety, not something to fear. It's a manifestation of the greatness that god, or whatever it is, gave us. This infinite variation and delight, this is part of the optimism we built into Star Trek. ~Gene Roddenberry”

IdeasDifferencesOptimismIntoleranceAttitudes
Book:The Making of Star Trek
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“Sometimes knowing is torture. You wish you could hide your secret away in a dark, cobwebby shed, shut the door, and break the key in the lock, so no one can ever get in again. You wish that you could go to sleep and have your last thought be anything but the buttery light of the New Mexico moon sneaking in through the cracks of an old barn's walls. But you can't erase the knowing, and you can never tell your secret. If there is one thing this world as taught me, it's that no matter how bad things get, they can always get worse. Secrets should stay secrets. It keeps them tolerable. Telling secrets turn them into full-on hell.”

TruthFearSilenceSecretsIntoleranceLoud Silence
Book:Beauty of the Broken
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“Jarret insists on being a throwback to some earlier, “simpler” time. Now does not suit him. Religious tolerance does not suit him. The current state of the country does not suit him. He wants to take us all back to some magical time when everyone believed in the same God, worshipped him in the same way, and understood that their safety in the universe depended on completing the same religious rituals and stomping anyone who was different. There was never such a time in this country. But these days when more than half the people in the country can’t read at all, history is just one more vast unknown to them.”

GodPastReligionHistoryIntoleranceFanaticismMagaDictatorsMake America Great AgainFacism
Book:Parable of the Talents
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“How to Tell A Human (Naskar Test) How to tell a human from ape, when both look the same? Look for the creature that considers everyone outside their religion a heathen, and everyone outside their culture a heretic - that's a textbook ape. Now look for the being that finds the same human spirit in every culture, religion and nation - that right there, is a rare human specimen. How to tell a human from robot, when both look the same? Look for the contraption that considers everything outside logic, without value - that's a lifeless robot. Look for the soul that knows when to, and when not to, apply logic in life and society - that's a living human.”

HumanityDiversityHumanToleranceExistentialismHumanistIntoleranceFundamentalismIntegrationInclusive
Book:Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper
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“A pompous, arrogant, narcissistic intellectual came up to me at a conference and said rather boastfully. "You must feel really good about yourself to be the nice guy all the time! But let me tell you something - it takes balls to say what's really on your mind. You might have heard, the best defense is a good offense..." He went on and on for a while, and the more he spoke the more his intolerant nature became evident. I listened to everything he had to say, then heaved a soft sight, and replied with a smile. "You are absolutely right! Ama senin gibi şerefsiz olmak insanın lazım yok - porque, no soy un hijo de puta como tú - nu okka chetta na kodakkala behave cheskovachhu, kaani naaku anthaa scene ledu." He looked rather annoyed, because all my words went over his head, so he flared out, "don't beat around the bush, man - say, what you want to say!" I spoke calmly. "I'd love to speak my mind, but I wouldn't want to give anyone an inferiority complex. Bad behavior don't make us cool, it only exposes the fool we are. If bad behavior made the world better, we'd already be living in utopia, instead of still struggling for basic human rights." I didn't want the argument to linger any longer, so I asked him to join me for lunch. You see, self-regulation is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. It doesn't take any character for the animal to be animal, but the true test of character is to behave human, upon conquering our inner animal.”

Human NatureGood And EvilIntoleranceSelf ControlSelf RegulationSelf RestraintBad BehaviorCognitive DissonanceEthics And MoralityPrimitive Urges
Book:Mucize Misafir Merhaba: The Peace Testament
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“Self-regulation is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. It doesn't take any character for the animal to be animal, but the true test of character is to behave human, upon conquering our inner animal.”

Human NatureGood And EvilIntoleranceSelf ControlEvolutionary PsychologySelf RegulationSelf RestraintCognitive DissonanceEthics And MoralityPrimitive Urges
Book:Mucize Misafir Merhaba: The Peace Testament
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“Beyond tongue and tradition, Beyond ignorance and intolerance, Beyond fear and fanaticism, Beyond rigidity and recklessness, Beyond the desert of dead habit, Beyond the logical heartlessness, Beyond the lies of selfish order, Beyond the highs of whims and wishes, There's a valley of love and laughter. Come someday, I shall meet you there.”

AcceptanceHumanismToleranceExistentialismInclusionSufismIntoleranceAdvaitaHumanitarianismFanaticism
Book:Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets
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“Where God Retreats (The Sonnet) Where God retreats, Human must step in. Where myths fall short, Mind must intervene. Where doctrines dwindle, Conscience must march uncorrupt. Where scriptures fall cripple, Character must stand on guard. Where logic dreads to tread, Love must rush to rescue life. Where governments legalize fear, Citizens must be bearer of light. Advance of Human is advance of God. Wishful indolence is religion of the cod.”

Social JusticeHuman RightsHumanismHumanitarianCivil RightsService Of HumanityHumanistActivistIntoleranceAgnostic
Book:The Humanitarian Dictator
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“Letter to My Soldiers I am only the beginning - the beginning of a new kind of humans - humans who belong to not one culture, but many cultures - humans who speak not one language, but many languages - humans who study scriptures and science with equal enthusiasm, yet pledge allegiance to neither, and know how to use both in the benefit of humanity - humans who aim for neither belief nor disbelief, but warmth and understanding - humans who are more concerned with the real hard problem of inhumanity, than the outdated hard problem of consciousness - humans who sacrifice their life treating the real hard question of hate, rather than the mythical hard question of god. I am only the beginning - the first spark, if you may - the best are yet to come.”

HumanismHumanitarianBigotryHumanistIntoleranceAgnosticAdvaitaMulticulturalismScience And ReligionInterfaith
Book:Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets
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“Plenty Room For All (The Sonnet) Turban, Hijab, Habit or Tuxedo, Wear whatever feels like second skin. No need to justify to judgmental apes, Life's too short to be wasted on fiends. Let them just fade away, as vestigials of evolution. Savagery requires treatment, not serious consideration. To be treated as a human being, One must behave as human being. Faith, intellect, both are poison, If the heart remains ever so mean. There's plenty room for all thoughts, No matter the measures of books 'n brain. Fiction, reason, all are welcome, On my earth where but love reigns.”

AcceptanceHumanismToleranceIntoleranceSecularismReligious FreedomInterfaithReligious HarmonyTolerationReligious Diversity
Book:Either Right or Human: 300 Limericks of Inclusion
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“How do we erase phobia from the world? First make a name for yourself, then associate that name to everything the world is ignorantly afraid of. In a pavlovian world where rating-hungry separatist media has conditioned the people to subconsciously relate every act of terror to a specific community, use your life to decondition the world - stand as the first human who is not afraid of humankind. That's why I say - I am a muslim poet, a humanitarian scientist, a latin lover, and an advaitin monk - I am an alternate dimension - an immeasurable dimension - where human oneness takes preference over animal separateness.”

HumanismOnenessIntoleranceAdvaitaMulticulturalismEqual RightsHate CrimeNondualismSufi PoetryIslamophobia
Book:Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat
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“End of Fear (Sonnet 1172) Where the end of fear ends all barrier, Where biases no longer run amok, Where end of assumption sets forth ascension, Where heritage no more wreaks havoc, Where the head is without bent, and the heart is never skint, Where the spine is without dent, and the eyes are without squint, Where Christian, Muslim, Sikh 'n Jew, sit and share a cup of stew, Where Buddhist, Atheist, Jain, Hindu, live and laugh as one life crew, There beyond, where sentience lets no storm to brew, Out of the fossil, into the fervor, I shall meet you.”

HumanismHumanitarianOnenessIntoleranceAdvaitaSecularismFanaticismGlobal HarmonyCultural IntegrationPeace Poetry
Book:Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat
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“Jai Ho (Sonnet 1165) Jai Ho to all the beings, Who ain't hypnotized with hate! Jai Ho to all the beings, Who ain't living in cavemen days! Jai Ho to the luchadors, Who struggle por la igualdad! Jai Ho to the reformers, Who value rights over ritual! Space may be the final frontier, But heart is the first frontier. Unless we first conquer the heart, We'll turn the cosmos into dumpyard. So I salute, to all explorers of heart! Jai Ho to the janitors of our cosmic courtyard!”

PrejudiceSocial JusticeHuman RightsHumanismEqualityHumanitarianDiscriminationCivil RightsIntoleranceHumanist Poem
Book:Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat
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“Discipline of the Sikh, Enthusiasm of the Christian, Brotherhood of the Muslim, Nonviolence of the Jain, Clarity of the Buddhist, Groundedness of the Hindu, Rationality of the Atheist, Resilience of the Jew - Take the good from everyone, Mind expands through assimilation. Past errors mustn't continue as tradition, Oneness is divinity, division is damnation.”

SpiritualityHumanismIntoleranceAdvaitaSecularismInterfaithReligious HarmonyReligious DiversityReligious TolerationInterfaith Poetry
Book:Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo
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