Umberto Eco Quotes

I believe that pluralistic secularism, in the long run, is a more deadly poison than straightforward persecution.

… in many countries scholars are being sent into exile for racial, religious and political reasons, in increasing numbers .... It means that more and more people are growing afraid to face differences of opinion and yet it is increasingly important that throughout the world differing opinions should be listened to and weighed by the people as a whole.

In a country like ours, burdened with a history of several centuries of religious wars, the struggle for freedom of liberal thought has often been bitter.

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

Traditionally, open-minded secular liberal rationalists have not made a case for tolerance.

We are enriched by our reciprocate differences.

Any open society that tolerates intolerance, sees tolerance disappear and the tolerant along with it.

Freedom arises from the multiplicity of sects, which pervades America and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there can not be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.

We have taken the idea of tolerance so far that we have to put up with intolerance.

Our showy celebration of, and absolute insistence upon, individual autonomy and unconstrained diversity pushes those by nature least equipped to live comfortably in a liberal democracy not to the limits of their tolerance, but to their intolerant extremes.

I don't judge people based on their religion. But I judge them based on how they respect the French constitution.

The Netherlands has been too tolerant to intolerant people for too long.

So many of the problems we have today are because people don't respect the beliefs of others.

It is setting a high value upon our opinions to roast men and women alive on account of them.

We are one of the most tolerant societies in the world, and in order to stay tolerant, my party believes that we should stop being tolerant to the people who are intolerant to us.

Toleration is not the opposite of intolerance, but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, the other of granting it.

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.

I want the French people to respect values that allow each individual to practice his or her faith, but in the frame of our common rules of secularism.

Those nations that say it's a crime to preach your religion are making a terrible mistake. All they're doing is driving underground other forms of spiritual intuitions and practices.

The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us.

While we welcome people of all faiths in America we cannot be so naive as to expect all countries to do the same. But we cannot allow their cultural mores to snuff out our religious freedoms or the freedom of women to have equal rights.

You can easily see why the experience of Jews would be helpful if you're looking to get action on religious persecution.

There can be no assumption that today's majority is 'right' and the Amish and others like them are 'wrong.' A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no rights or interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different.

The terrorists haven't won, and we should tell them in plain English, 'No, there will never be a mosque at Ground Zero.'

Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.