Tolerance is the willingness to accept behaviour and belief different from your own

• Tolerance: The ability or willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviour that one dislikes or disagrees with. Oxford Dictionary
• Tolerance: The willingness to accept behaviour and beliefs that are different from your own, although you might not agree with or approve of them. Cambridge Dictionary
• Acceptance,  Patience, Open-mindedness,  Prejudice

.

Be tolerant of all, especially those in the minority

• The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority. Ralph W. Sockman
• How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these. George Washington Carver
• Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant with the weak and wrong. Sometime in your life, you will have been all of these. Siddhārtha Gautama
• It requires less character to discover the faults of others, than to tolerate them.   J Petit Senn
• 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.  Voltaire

.

Tolerance brings great rewards

• How do we create a harmonious society out of so many kinds of people? The key is tolerance – the one value that is indispensable in creating community. Barbara Jordan
• How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these. George Washington Carver
• Until you have learned to be tolerant with those who do not always agree with you; until you have cultivated the habit of saying some kind word of those whom you do not admire; until you have formed the habit of looking for the good instead of the bad there is in others, you will be neither successful nor happy. Napoleon Hill

.

We pay a high price for intolerance

• Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand; with a grip that kills it. Rabindranath Tagore
• Nothing dies so hard, or rallies so often as intolerance. Henry Ward Beecher

.

Shake off your prejudices

• The greatest and noblest pleasure which we have in this world is to discover new truths, and the next is to shake off old prejudices. Frederick II, the Great
• I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self- evident, that all men are created equal. Martin Luther King Jr.
• I’m quite sure that … I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being–that is enough for me he can’t be any worse. Mark Twain
• Xenophobia doesn’t benefit anybody unless you’re playing high-stakes Scrabble. Dennis Miller
• We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to root out prejudice: For you have already given us eyes with which to see the good in all people If we would only use them rightly. Rabbi Jack Riemer
• When we clearly understand that there is no superior sex or superior race, we will have opened the door of communication and laid the foundation for building winning relationships with all people in this global world of ours. Zig Ziglar
• It is never too late to give up your prejudices. Henry David Thoreau
• The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility. Charles Caleb Colton
• A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. William James
• Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones. Charlotte Brontë
• Let’s stop being so damn judgemental & crucifying everyone who doesn’t fit into our boxed-in perceptions of what is right. Gillian Anderson
• Prejudice

.

Unlearn what you’ve been taught and learn to love

• No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Nelson Mandela
• I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to. Alice Walker
• You’ve got to be taught to be afraid of people whose eyes are oddly made, of people whose skin is a different shade. You’ve got to be carefully taught.  Oscar Hammerstein II
• Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among stones. Charlotte Bronte
• There’s another kind of open mindedness too, the kind that’s willing to see people for who they really are and admit when you were wrong about them. That’s the part I still need to work on. Kelley Armstrong
• Love,  Learning

.

Be tolerant through deepening your compassion

• We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• I call him religious who understands the suffering of others. Mahatma Gandhi
• Compassion

.

Seek to understand others

• Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding. Mohandas Gandhi
• Man is always inclined to be intolerant towards the thing, or person, he hasn’t taken the time adequately to understand. Robert R. Brown
• Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try to understand each other, we may even become friends. Maya Angelou
• Instead of condemning people, try to understand them. Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain–and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving. Lawrence G. Lovasik
• Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• What the mind doesn’t understand, it worships or fears. Alice Walker
• Before you hate something you should try to understand it. Martha Grimes
• Whatever people in general do not understand, they are always prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious. Letitia Landon
• Seek first to understand

.

Never judge someone by the colour of someone’s skin

• I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• The color of the skin makes no difference. What is good and just for one is good and just for the other, and the Great Spirit made all men brothers. White Shield

.

Appreciate and even celebrate the differences of others

• Cultivate your own capabilities, your own style. Appreciate the members of your family for who they are, even though their outlook or style may be miles different from yours. Rabbits don’t fly. Eagles don’t swim. Ducks look funny trying to climb. Squirrels don’t have feathers. Stop comparing. There’s plenty of room in the forest. Chuck Swindoll
• Greetings, I am pleased to see that we are different. May we together become greater than the sum of both of us. Vulcan greeting
• Nowadays, the common wisdom is to celebrate diversity–as long as you don’t point out that people are different. Colin Quinn
• You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note. Doug Floyd
• We should acknowledge differences, we should greet differences, until difference makes no difference anymore. Adela A. Allen
• We must preserve our right to think and differ. Eleanor Roosevelt
• When all think alike, no one is thinking very much. Walter Lippmann
• Do not think of knocking out another person’s brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago. Horace Mann
• Diversity

.

Accept people’s faults for no-one is perfect

• Deal with the faults of others as gently as with your own. Chinese proverb
• If you cannot mould yourself entirely as you would wish, how can you expect other people to be entirely to your liking? Thomas á Kempis
• What is toleration? It is the prerogative of humanity. We are all steeped in weaknesses and errors: Let us forgive one another’s follies, it is the first law of nature. Voltaire
• Acceptance

.

Be tolerant of your own faults too

• The most dangerous of our prejudices reign in ourselves against ourselves. To dissolve them is a creative act. Hugo von Hofsmannsthal
• There are none so tense as those who try to be outwardly perfect. There is great release in acknowledging your foibles and laughing at your mistakes. Ervin Seale
• Becoming whole is becoming authentic, becoming yourself – whosoever you are, whatsoever you are. Accept your limitations, accept your imperfections. That’s what it means to be a human being. Osho
• Self-acceptance,  Self-love

.

Believe the best in people

• I always prefer to believe the best of everybody–it saves so much time. Rudyard Kipling
• Have you noticed in your past experience that your kind interpretations were almost always truer than you harsh one? Lawrence G. Lovasik

.

Be open to other ideas, beliefs and perspectives

• It takes a disciplined person to listen to convictions which are different from their own. Dorothy Fuldman
• Minds are like parachutes–they only function when open. Sir James Dewar
• Who do you want to barbecue today? Someone who doesn’t see things quite our way? Bash ‘N the Code
• People are very open-minded about new things–as long as they’re exactly like the old ones. Charles F. Kettering
• The next time you find yourself in an argument, rather than defend yourself, see if you can see the other point of view first. Richard Carlson
• Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Stephen Covey
• Today my awareness will remain established in Defenselessness. I will relinquish the need to defend my point of view. I will feel no need to convince or persuade others to accept my point of view. I will remain open to all points of view. Deepak Chopra
• In all tests of character, when two viewpoints are pitted against one another, in the final analysis the thing that will strike you the most, is not who was right or wrong, strong or weak, wise or foolish…. but who would go to the greatest lengths in considering the other’s perspective. Mike Dooley
• Many of the “truths” you cling to are simply a result of one point of view—yours. Stephen Covey
• In reality, there are an infinite number of perspectives, but we act as if there were only one. Genpo Roshi
• There is no truth. Only points of view. Dame Edith Sitwell
• Let’s consciously evolve as individuals and as a culture to a “second- tier” level of consciousness. Here, for the first time, we can hold multiple perspectives. No one is smart enough to be 100% wrong. Ken Wilber
• If we agree on everything, only one of us is necessary. Dan Millman
• Always respect another’s opinion and another’s point of view. Sri Sathya Sai Baba
• We find comfort among those who agree with us–growth among those who don’t. Frank A. Clark
• Write down your five most stubborn positions and see if you can soften them. Richard Carlson
• Open-mindedness

.

Avoid judging

• There is a beauty that arises from withholding judgment and evading comparison, a grace in not demanding consensus. David Romtvedt
• There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members. Eric Hoffer
• It requires less character to discover the faults of others, than to tolerate them. J Petit Senn
• Let go of the need to judge

.

Drive out intolerance with love

• Darkness can not drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Love

.

On a lighter note

• Until you walk a mile in another man’s moccasins you can’t imagine the smell. Robert Byrne
• I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally. C. Fields
• A most impressive evidence of tolerance is a golden wedding anniversary. Purser Hewitt
• Disorder expands proportionately to the tolerance for it.  Welwood’s Axiom
• If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s intolerance.
• Nothing makes you more tolerant of a neighbor’s noisy party than being there.  Franklin Jones
• The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius. Oscar Wilde
• There’s only two things I hate in this world; people who are intolerant of other people’s cultures and the Dutch.  Michael Caine
• Tolerance: Another word for indifference.
• Tolerance: That uncomfortable feeling that the other fellow might be right after all.

.