Atal Bihari Vajpayee Quotes

Let no one challenge India's secularism.

India's pluralism is its greatest strength and its greatest example to the world.

As far as the public is concerned, India is amazingly secular.

In India, it is not a contradiction for religion and liberalism to co-exist.

In the U.S., diversity is a politically correct slogan. In India, it is a historical fact. Much as we in the West may resent it, India has a lot to teach us when it comes to religious tolerance.

Knowledge about religions is not only characteristic of an educated person, but is also absolutely necessary for understanding and living in a world of diversity.

I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration but we accept all religions as true.

I like the pluralism of modernity; it doesn't threaten me or my faith. And if one's faith is dependent on being reinforced in every aspect of other people's lives, then it is a rather insecure faith, don't you think?

There are Muslims of all kinds. The idea of closing them into a single identity is wrong.

If India is not secular, then India is not India at all.

I respect every religion.

Ours is a vast country, many languages, many castes, creeds, religions.

We believe in equal respect for all faiths.

I am a secular man who believes in inclusion, so balance comes across organically.

India will not function if you do not believe in unity in diversity.

We can't blame the entire Muslim society because of the mischievous acts of a few individuals. Therefore, at the general public level we must cultivate the notion of not just one religion, one truth, but pluralism and many truths. We can change the atmosphere, and we can modify certain ways of thinking.

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers.

Our society is pluralistic. We who accept the privilege of membership in that society agree to respect the people's right to live by their own religious precepts.

We have lived for thousands of years together, Muslims and Christians; we are part of the same society.

Many of us, both Jews and Christians, want the public square to be pluralistic, which is neither partisan nor naked.

I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.

The roots of India's soft power run deep. India's is a civilization that, over millennia, has offered refuge and, more importantly, religious and cultural freedom, to Jews, Parsis, several varieties of Christians, and Muslims.

More and more people care about religious tolerance as fewer and fewer care about religion.

God did not burden the United States with a diversity of backgrounds, ideas and religions, He blessed America with them.

My books are anti-absolutist and deeply distrustful of any religious stance that precludes the validity of any other.