Quotes About Pluralism

#1. Pluralism matters because life is not worth living without new experiences - new people, new places, new challenges. But discipline matters too; we cannot simply treat life as a psychedelic trip through a series of novel sensations.

Tim Harford

#2. Pluralism makes a unifying myth impossible. But if we cannot reinstate such a mythology we can, at least, return to the source from which mythology springs - the creative imagination.

Joseph Campbell

#3. The introduction of political pluralism often quickly led to bad results.

Omar Bongo

#4. The true victory is the victory for democracy and pluralism.

Hosni Mubarak

#5. Ironically, the first thing that appealed to me about Islam was its pluralism. The fact that the Koran praises all the great prophets of the past.

Karen Armstrong

#6. We need the value and the beauty of democracy, and the beauty of pluralism is there's a free exchange of ideas. Nobody is right all the time. I'm not right all the time. I don't agree with anybody all the time, and I don't even agree with myself all the time.

Rick Warren

#7. Many religious moderates have taken the apparent high road of pluralism, asserting the equal validity of all faiths, but in doing so they neglect to notice the irredeemably sectarian truth claims of each.

Sam Harris

#8. One of the best ways of showing pluralism in action is for people to do service together, and that has so many benefits.

Eboo Patel

#9. In the realm of culture, the new totalitarianism manifests itself precisely in a harmonizing pluralism, where the most contradictory works and truths peacefully coexist in indifference.

Herbert Marcuse

#10. I represent the concept that pluralism is essential, union pluralism. I made an oath about this.

Lech Walesa

#11. We will keep a commitment to pluralism and not discriminate for or against Methodist or Mormons or Muslims or good people with no faith at all.

George W. Bush

#12. This is, of course, an easy Berlinian riposte. Start with some graceful hand waving about incommensurability; declare that nothing could reconcile these great goods; and (with a tip of trilby) commend liberal pluralism for living with the contradictions.

Kwame Anthony Appiah

#13. There are a lot of people that think the Internet is going to bring information and democracy and pluralism in China just by existing.

Rebecca MacKinnon

#14. There should be pluralism - the concept of many religions, many truths. But we must also be careful not to become nihilistic.

Dalai Lama

#15. But in practice Australia - the pluralism of Australia - sorry the sectarianism to an extent stopped at the time you took your uniform off after coming home from school.

Thomas Keneally

#16. I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good - Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty. We are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism.

Randall Terry

#17. Americans have always believed that-within the law-all kinds of people should be allowed to take the initiative in all kinds of activities. And out of that pluralism has come virtually all of our creativity. Freedom is real only to the extent that there are diverse alternatives.

John W. Gardner

#18. I thought about the meaning of pluralism in a world where the forces that seek to divide us are strong. I came to one conclusion: We have to save each other. It's the only way to save ourselves.

Eboo Patel

#19. I believe in an India of pluralism and diversity, not of religious bigotry and caste politics. I believe in an India that is secure in itself and confident of its place in the world, an India that is a proud example of tolerance, freedom and hope for the downtrodden.

Shashi Tharoor

#20. The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.

Christopher Hitchens

#21. Our country, like every modern state, needs profound democratic reforms. It needs political and ideological pluralism, a mixed economy and protection of human rights and the opening up of society.

Andrei Sakharov

#22. Pluralism is a merciful narcotic.

Saki

#23. Many people are trying to remove religion from public life. Under the banner of pluralism, cultural and political leaders are seeking to push all talk about God out of the public arena.

Charles Colson

#24. A society based on Christian principles provides for pluralism, but with enough restrictions to prevent civilization from degenerating into chaos.

Benjamin Hart

#25. I am happy that Poland is returning to the road of pluralism and democracy.

Lech Walesa

#26. Unlike multiculturalism, cultural pluralism doesn't just mean diversity but also togetherness - primarily the understanding of the rules of the game - the European values structure.

Bassam Tibi

#27. Pluralism is denied logically; inclusivism is denied scripturally, and that leaves us with exclusivism ... you have to know that Jesus died and believe in it in order to be saved.

Norman Geisler

#28. We live in a culture that embraces pluralism and relativism, and we are told every (lay that proselytizing people or trying to convert people to Christianity is taboo. But the Lord Himself was sent by the Father to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10), and He passed the baton to His disciples.

R.C. Sproul

#29. "Who are we to say what is right and what is wrong?" is the common refrain under the doctrine of pure pluralism. Clearly, society cannot long survive if this principle is pushed to its logical conclusion and everyone is free to write his own laws.

Benjamin Hart

#30. It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject nonsense will be excused if the utterer can claim the sanction of religion. A country which forbids an established church by law is prey to any denomination. The best that can be said is that this is pluralism of a kind.

Christopher Hitchens

#31. Now, I think we can all agree that fear is a motivator. The problem is that fear can motivate us to do the wrong things, too. Fear can make the "saving of our skins" the priority, as it does in this case involving religious pluralism.

Curtis A. Chamberlain

#32. To see the other side, to defend another people, not despite your tradition but because of it, is the heart of pluralism

Eboo Patel

#33. How could, it was felt, people be so opposed to modernity, and all the many goods it had to offer to people around the world: equality, liberty, prosperity, toleration, pluralism and representative government.

Pankaj Mishra

#34. Libertarians recognize the inevitable pluralism of the modern world and for that reason assert that individual liberty is at least part of the common good.

Tom G. Palmer

#35. I like the pluralism of modernity; it doesn't threaten me or my faith. And if one's faith is dependent on being reinforced in every aspect of other people's lives, then it is a rather insecure faith, don't you think?

Andrew Sullivan

#36. Life in cyberspace seems to be shaping up exactly like Thomas Jefferson would have wanted: founded on the primacy of individual liberty and a commitment to pluralism, diversity, and community.

Mitch Kapor

#37. One overall conclusion is plain: under the weight of the combined impact of exploding pluralism, the expansion of the state, and emerging separationism, the early American settlement, so brilliantly described by Tocqueville, is gone, and gone for good.

Os Guinness

#38. The great American tradition is one of pluralism, not exclusive secularism. The strength of our country is reflected in the contributions that we all make to the common good.

Donald Wuerl

#39. Proponents of so-called pluralism feel compelled to ban religious considerations from public discourse because they know, instinctively if not intellectually, that their faith is in direct conflict with the God of the Bible, and that in the end the two positions are irreconcilable.

Benjamin Hart

#40. Pluralism and tolerance are pillars of modern society. That has to be accepted. But pluralism doesn't just mean diversity. It means that we share the same rules and values, and are still nevertheless different. Islam doesn't have this idea. And Islam also has no tradition of tolerance.

Bassam Tibi

#41. If adapted to the unique requirements of various regions and peoples of the world, such economic pluralism could have a greater global impact over the next fifty years than the collectivist economics of Marxism and neo-Marxism have had during the half century just past.

Robert Dickson Crane

#42. Where there is true variety, there will be inevitable 'inequality' - that is simply the result of human nature and the pluralism that defines us as a people.

Cory Bernardi

#43. The freedom to be able to offer education, human services, and health care in accordance with our own identity as a church should not be denied us simply because there may be the perception of a political majority who favors a new understanding of the American tradition of pluralism.

Donald Wuerl

#44. I deeply believe in pluralism. I believe in the close proximity of multiple systems or agnostic systems.

Ben Nicholson

#45. From the Muslims I learned from the extraordinary pluralism of the Koran, the fact that the Koran endorses every single one of the major world faiths, but I was particularly enthralled by the Sufi tradition, the mystical tradition of Islam, which is so open to other religious faiths.

Karen Armstrong

#46. After the Christian majority takes control, pluralism will be seen as immoral and evil and the state will not permit anybody to practice it.

Pat Robertson

#47. Although proselytizing is not in itself necessarily intolerant, it does close the open-ended door of pluralism

Wendy Doniger

#48. Pluralism today - at least in America - exists without a dominant culture,

James Davison Hunter

#49. A legitimate plurality of positions has yielded to an undifferentiated pluralism, based upon the assumption that all positions are equally valid, which is one of today's most widespread symptoms of the lack of confidence in truth.

Pope John Paul II

#50. At least for a moment we all saw, I think, that the danger of pluralism is that it becomes factionalism, and that if factions grind their separate axes too vociferously, something mutual, precious, and human is in danger of being drowned out and lost.

Frederick Buechner

#51. The Founders believed that pluralism survived only within the concept of religious liberty espoused by American Christianity.

David Barton

#52. Pluralism is the word society employs during the transition from one orthodoxy to another.

E.R. Norman

#53. In the culture of pluralism ... the only thing that cannot be tolerated is a claim to exclusivity.

R.C. Sproul

#54. Pluralism is no longer simply an asset or a prerequisite for progress and development, it is vital to our existence.

Aga Khan IV

#55. The modern state does not comprehend how anyone can be guided by something other than itself. In its eyes pluralism is treason.

Richard M. Weaver

#56. This is pluralism: not a synonym of relativism, but rather an antonym. Pluralism accepts the moral reality of different kinds of truth, but rejects the idea that they can all be placed on a single scale, measured by a single value.

Timothy Snyder

#57. Canada has for many years been a beacon to the rest of the world for its commitment to pluralism and for its support for the multicultural richness and diversity of its peoples

Aga Khan IV

#58. We see pluralism: We can see that there are different ideological and political positions in Russia. If the authoritarianism finally ends, we will have real competition.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova

#59. It's unfortunate that [Louis] Brandeis was not able to translate or abstract his devotion to cultural pluralism and racial equality as he put it for Jews to enslave people and their descendants and to African Americans.

Jeffrey Rosen

#60. I often have discussions with people who demand pluralism and much more. One can discuss these issues, but only within the framework of the law.

Nguyen Minh Triet

#61. We are engaged in a social, political, and cultural war. There's a lot of talk in America about pluralism. But the bottom line is somebody's values will prevail. And the winner gets the right to teach our children what to believe.

Gary Bauer

#62. What we pluralists have to do is to say to the people standing on the faith line, particularly the young ones, no, pluralism is the wish of the creator. It is the greatest opportunity for humanity.

Eboo Patel

#63. Perhaps the most striking feature of the [nonprofit] sector is its relative freedom from constraints and its resulting pluralism.

John W. Gardner

#64. What distinguishes the "war on terror" is that it is a war against a concept, not a nation. And the enemy concept, it seems to me, is pluralism.

Mohsin Hamid

#65. [ ... ] pluralism implies religious tolerance, not unchecked religious freedom.

Reza Aslan

#66. Pluralism lets things really exist in the each-form or distributively. Monism thinks that the all-form or collective-unit form is the only form that is rational.

William James

#67. We talk about pluralism, multi-culturalism and tolerance. But I hope we are moving toward a time when we don't just "tolerate" people from different cultures and religions, but when we can appreciate and enjoy both the ways we are all different, and the ways we are all the same.

Anne Shelby

#68. The dominant knowledge system tends to embrace an anti-pluralism, a lack of receptiveness to alternative epistemologies, to other ways of knowing the world.

Laurelyn Whitt

#69. We believe that religions are basically the same ... they only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

Steve Turner

#70. How can one maintain a theological confidence in what one claims to be _true_ while acknowledging the existence of multiple religions that also claim to be _true_?

Namsoon Kang

#71. Tolerance is the price we pay for living in a free, pluralistic society.

Robert Casey

#72. Church and state are, and must remain, separate.

Ronald Reagan

#73. To respect the opinions of those who stand against you is nothing short of courageous.

Raif Badawi

#74. ...one family's most beloved recipes can become a delicious cornerstone as humanity builds a more pluralistic world where the best pieces of every culture can be enjoyed.

Karen Anderson

#75. It is not a Buddhist approach to say that if everyone practiced Buddhism, the world would be a better place. Wars and oppression begin from this kind of thinking.

Sulak Sivaraksa

#76. Whatever we may think of the merits of torturing children for pleasure, and no doubt there is much to be said on both sides, I am sure we all agree that it should be done with sterilized instruments.

G.K. Chesterton

#77. Nothing - not even the US Army - more threatens the future of a democratic, pluralistic and (dare we wish, secular) Iraq than the political ascendancy of Islamic fascists like Al Sadr.

Marc Cooper

#78. The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.

William Blake

#79. America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance - it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded.

Fulton J. Sheen