Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others. (Quote by - John F. Kennedy)

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know. (Quote by - George Eliot)

Christianity has made martyrdom sublime, and sorrow triumphant. (Quote by - Edwin Hubbell Chapin)

It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions make it impossible to earn a living. (Quote by - Bertrand Russell)

Galileo probably would have escaped persecution if his discoveries could have been disproved. (Quote by - Archbishop Richard Whately)

Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good. (Quote by - Buddha)

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Quote by - Bible)

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? (Quote by - Henry David Thoreau)

In that disputable point of persecuting men for conscience sake, I see such dreadful consequences rising, I would be as fully convinced of the truth of it, as a mathematical demonstration, before I would venture to act upon it or make it a part of my religion. (Quote by - Joseph Addison)

All of us can think of a book... that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf -- that book I abhor -- then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us. (Quote by - Katherine Patterson)

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution. (Quote by - George Eliot)

Persecution produced its natural effect on them. It found them a sect; it made them a faction. (Quote by - Thomas Babington Macaulay)

Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution. (Quote by - William Butler Yeats)

It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power -- power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors; they want to retaliate. (Quote by - Eric Hoffer)

Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants. (Quote by - Lucius Annaeus Seneca)

To punish a man because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked. (Quote by - Thomas Babington)

Religions are illogical primitive ignorance. There is nothing as ridiculous and tragic as a religious government. (Quote by - Leon Trotsky)

Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law. (Quote by - Thomas Paine)

Humanity's most valuable assets have been the non-conformists. Were it not for the non-conformists, he who refuses to be satisfied to go along with the continuance of things as they are, and insists upon attempting to find new ways of bettering things, the world would have known little progress, indeed. (Quote by - Josiah William Gitt)

Persecution is not wrong because it is cruel; but it is cruel because it is wrong. (Quote by - Archbishop Richard Whately )

Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize the oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all... It is plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes. (Quote by - Justice Hugo L. Black)

Religion which requires persecution to sustain, it is of the devil's propagation. (Quote by - Hosea Ballou)

Society's needs come before the individual's needs. (Quote by - Adolf Hitler)

We have entered a period of intolerance which combines, as it sometimes does in America, with a sugary taste for euphemism. (Quote by - Robert Hughes)

The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one, analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice. (Quote by - John Rawls)