“Free inquiry requires that we tolerate diversity of opinion and that we respect the right of individuals to express their beliefs, however unpopular they may be, without social or legal prohibition or fear of success.”

—  Paul Kurtz

Paul Kurtz (1983) In defense of secular humanism, p. 16

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Free inquiry requires that we tolerate diversity of opinion and that we respect the right of individuals to express the…" by Paul Kurtz?
Paul Kurtz photo
Paul Kurtz 12
American professor of philosophy 1925–2012

Related quotes

John Perry Barlow photo

“We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.”

John Perry Barlow A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (1996)
Context: You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.
Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.
We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.
We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.

Gordon B. Hinckley photo

“There is so great a need for civility and mutual respect among those of differing beliefs and philosophies. We must not be partisans of any doctrine of ethnic superiority. We live in a world of diversity. We can and must be respectful toward those with whose teachings we may not agree. We must be willing to defend the rights of others who may become the victims of bigotry.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

First talk as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, April 3,1995.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo

“Multiculturalism should not mean that we tolerate another culture’s intolerance. If we do in fact support diversity, women’s rights, and gay rights, then we cannot in good conscience give Islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali book Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now

Source: Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now

Thomas Sowell photo

“Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Will Property Rights Return?
1980s–1990s, Is Reality Optional? (1993)

Gulzarilal Nanda photo

“[In 1956], Prohibition we have to make it successful. To whatever extent we go forward it must be attained effectively. We are told that only a very small percentage drink in India. That should be an added reason for carrying out prohibition because it should be easier to make it successful. When large numbers drink there is a no strong opinion against it. But if ninety percent do not, it is reservoir of public opinion which if utilized properly is a guarantee of success of prohibition.”

Gulzarilal Nanda (1898–1998) Prime Minister of India

In p. 41
Prohibition was made an integral part of the Second Fiver Plan in March 1956.
Gulzarilal Nanda: A Life in the Service of the People

“To illustrate the point of legitimacy-beyond-legality, consider the American Nazi party, the Flat Earth Society, and Hustler magazine. All three are quite legal, but they lack legitimacy. We acquiesce in their presence as the price we pay for living in a free society; but we refuse to take them seriously as "legitimate" expressions of political action, scientific inquiry or literary endeavor.”

John Rohr (1934–2011) American political scientist

Source: To run a constitution, 1986, p. x

Mohammad Hidayatullah photo

“The cherished right on which our democracy rests is meant for the expression of free opinions to change political or social conditions or for the advancement of human knowledge.”

Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) 11th Chief Justice of India

Full Court Reference in Memory of The Late Justice M. Hidayatullah

Thomas Jefferson photo

“We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to William Carmichael and William Short (1793)
1790s

Abraham Lincoln photo

“We think Slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories, where our votes will reach it. We think that a respect for ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God that made us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will properly reach it. We think that species of labor an injury to free white men — in short, we think Slavery a great moral, social and political evil, tolerable only because, and so far as its actual existence makes it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that, it ought to be treated as a wrong.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: To us it appears natural to think that slaves are human beings; men, not property; that some of the things, at least, stated about men in the Declaration of Independence apply to them as well as to us. I say, we think, most of us, that this Charter of Freedom applies to the slave as well as to ourselves, that the class of arguments put forward to batter down that idea, are also calculated to break down the very idea of a free government, even for white men, and to undermine the very foundations of free society. We think Slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories, where our votes will reach it. We think that a respect for ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God that made us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will properly reach it. We think that species of labor an injury to free white men — in short, we think Slavery a great moral, social and political evil, tolerable only because, and so far as its actual existence makes it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that, it ought to be treated as a wrong.

Related topics