Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.
Interpretation
Tolerance means respecting others' beliefs while remaining committed to your own.
This quote by John F. Kennedy emphasizes that true tolerance does not require forsaking one's own beliefs; instead, it involves rejecting the oppression and persecution of others due to differing beliefs. It advocates for coexistence and respect among diverse perspectives, recognizing that a healthy society is built on mutual understanding and acceptance.
In practice
In a speech advocating for human rights.
The great battleground for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe... the lands of the rising peoples. Their revolution is the greatest in human history. They seek an end to injustice, tyranny and exploitation. More than an end, they seek a beginning.
I had always enjoyed the title of Commander-in-Chief until I was informed ... that the only forces that cannot be transferred from Washington without my express permission are the members of the Marine Corps Band. Those are the only forces I have. I want it announced that we propose to hold the White House against all odds at least for some time to come.
I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children - not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy; Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.
Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
Americans are willing to go to enormous trouble and expense defending their principles with arms, very little trouble and expense advocating them with words. Temperamentally we are ready to die for certain principles (or, in the case of overripe adults, send youngsters to die), but we show little inclination to advertise the reasons for dying.
Speech is a mirror of the soul: as a man speaks, so is he.
We poison the wine as He decants it into us; murder a melody He would play with us as the instrument...Hence all sin, whatever else it is, is sacrilege.
The hearing that is only in the ears is one thing. The hearing of the understanding is another. But the hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty to the ear, or to the mind.
In some way impossible to ascertain, after so many years of absense, Jose Arcadio was still an autumnal child, terribly sad and solitary.
When I was younger, not being accepted made me enraged, but now, I am not inclined to dismantle my history. If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes-and we become attached to the heroic strain in our personal history.
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