No man has a right in America to treat any other man "tolerantly" for tolerance is the assumption of superiority. Our liberties are equal rights of every citizen.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that tolerance should not be viewed as a means of superiority over others, but rather as an essential equality among all citizens.
Wendell Willkie's quote challenges the notion of tolerance as a virtue that implies a hierarchy where one person tolerates another from a position of superiority. Instead, it asserts that true equality means recognizing the equal worth and rights of every citizen in America, advocating for a genuine sense of respect and shared liberty among individuals without a patronizing attitude.
In practice
In a speech advocating for civil rights, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of true equality.
Freedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the color of their skin.
It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power. Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong.
Today it is becoming increasingly apparent to thoughtful Americans that we cannot fight the forces and ideas of imperialism abroad and maintain any form of imperialism at home. The war has done this to our thinking.
I believe the moral losses of expediency always far outweigh the temporary gains.
To suppress minority thinking and minority expression would tend to freeze society and prevent progress. Now more than ever we must keep in the forefront of our minds the fact that whenever we take away the liberties of those we hate, we are opening the way to loss of liberty for those we love.
No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great.
Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
If a man thinks he is not conceited, he is very conceited indeed.
Records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth.
The aim of the missionary is to do God's will, not to be useful, not to win the heathan; he is useful and does win the heathen, but that is not his aim. His aim is to do the will of his Lord.
I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between.
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