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Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in
order that every man present his views without penalty, there must be spirit
of tolerance in the entire population. Your neighbor's vision is as
true for him as your own vision is true for you. The only way to make sure people you agree with can
speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with. I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird.
Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird. 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. You have your way. I have my way. As for the right
way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. You must tolerate that which you cannot change.
In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best
teacher. Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it
requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a
bicycle. If a profound gulf separates my neighbor's belief from
mine, there is always the golden bridge of tolerance. I am
the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not
superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who
have the best heart – the best brain. Nobody
ever helps me into carriages or over mud puddles, or gives me any best
place. And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! I have ploughed and planted and
gathered into barns and no man could head me. And ain’t I a woman? I could
work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and hear the
lash as well. And ain’t I a woman> I have borne thirteen children and seen
most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mothers’ grief,
none but Jesus heard me. And ain’t I a woman?
“All
men are created equal.” “Government by consent of the governed.” “Give me
liberty or give me death.” And those are not just clever words, and those
are not just empty theories.
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Tolerance
can lead to learning something.
