“The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself.”

Source: Epigrams, p. 367

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 "The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself." by Ambrose Bierce?
Ambrose Bierce photo
Ambrose Bierce 204
American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabu… 1842–1914

Related quotes

Alan Watts photo

“Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951)
Context: There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love. It cannot be copied. You cannot talk yourself into it or rouse it by straining at the emotions or by dedicating yourself solemnly to the service of mankind. Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself. This conviction will not come through condemnations, through hating oneself, through calling self love bad names in the universe. It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love.

Leo Buscaglia photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Seneca the Younger photo

“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist
Ali al-Rida photo
Hesiod photo

“He harms himself who does harm to another, and the evil plan is most harmful to the planner.”

οἷ γ᾽ αὐτῷ κακὰ τεύχει ἀνὴρ ἄλλῳ κακὰ τεύχων
ἡ δὲ κακὴ βουλὴ τῷ βουλεύσαντι κακίστη.
The man who does evil to another does evil to himself, and the evil counsel is most evil for him who counsels it.
He for himself weaves woe who weaves for others woe,
and evil counsel recoils on the counsellor. https://archive.org/stream/b24865898#page/432/mode/2up
Source: Works and Days (c. 700 BC), lines 265-266

Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey photo

“He will always see the most beauty whose affections are the warmest and most exercised, whose imagination is the most powerful, and who has most accustomed himself to attend to the objects by which he is surrounded.”

Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773–1850) British politician

Review of Archibald Alison's Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste, in the Edinburgh Review (May 1811)

Gilles Villeneuve photo
Karen Marie Moning photo
Learned Hand photo

“Like John Stuart Mill, he would often begin by stating the other side better than its advocate had stated it himself.”

Learned Hand (1872–1961) American legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge

On Benjamin N. Cardozo in "Mr. Justice Cardozo" (1939); also in The Spirit of Liberty: Papers and Addresses (1952), p. 131.
Extra-judicial writings

Related topics