Persecution Quotes

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution. (George Eliot)
Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others. View quote
John F. Kennedy
Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety. View quote
Edmund Burke
In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution. View quote
Alexander Hamilton
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law. View quote
Thomas Paine
You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know. View quote
George Eliot
Christians well know that the much-decorated statue of the Church, as it now stands, is not of pure chiseled marble, but of clay, cemented together by blood and tears and hardened in the fires of hatred and persecution. View quote
Virchand Gandhi
The evil that we do does not attract to us so much persecution and hatred as our good qualities. View quote
François de La Rochefoucauld
There can be no Good Will. Will is always Evil it is persecution to others or selfishness. View quote
William Blake
Knowledge of God's Word is a bulwark against deception, temptation, accusation, even persecution. View quote
Edwin Louis Cole
Christians are beginning to lose the spirit of intolerance which animated them: experience has shown the error of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and of the persecution of those Christians in France whose belief differed a little from that of the king. They have realized that zeal for the advancement of religion is different from a due attachment to it; and that in order to love it and fulfill its behests, it is not necessary to hate and persecute those who are opposed to it. (Montesquieu)
I taught in the Academy from the opening of the schools until I was turned out, a period much longer than I should have permitted myself to remain there.My honors are misunderstanding, persecution and neglect, enhanced because unsought. View quote
Thomas Eakins
The spirit of religious persecution is not the special failing of any particular faith, but springs eternal in the human breast. View quote
Dion Fortune
Continuous persecution of widows and orphans is a crime. Even the Bible says there is a specific place in hell for those who oppress widows. View quote
Imelda Marcos
What a fine persecution - to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened. View quote
Tom Stoppard
I often feel that worse than the most fiendish Nazis were those Germans who went along with the persecution of the Jews not because they really disliked them but because it was the thing. View quote
Christopher Isherwood
Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plant Religion. View quote
Thomas Browne
Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution. View quote
William Butler Yeats
I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Persecution always says, 'I know the consequences of your opinion better than you know them yourselves.' But the language of toleration was always amicable, liberal, and just: it confessed its doubts, and acknowledged its ignorance ... Persecution had always reasoned from cause to effect, from opinion to action, [that such an opinion would invariably lead to but one action], which proved generally erroneous; while toleration led us invariably to form just conclusions, by judging from actions and not from opinions. View quote
Charles James Fox
Fascism was part of the absolute evil. (...) We have to denounce the ashaming pages in the history of our past. (...) There included all the pages related to the discrimination and the persecution of jews and, more in general, of minoritires. And therefore that one [The Italian Social Republic of Salò] is also included. (Gianfranco Fini)
The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes. View quote
John Stuart Mill
Even before Melanchthon sank into his grave, he was dismayed at seeing Lutheranism stiffen into dogmas and formulas, and heartbroken by a persecution from his fellow-Protestants more bitter than anything he had ever experienced from Catholics. View quote
Andrew Dickson White
All religions have periods in their history which are looked back to with retrospective fear and trembling as eras of persecution, and each religion has its own book of martyrs. View quote
Richard Le Gallienne
The emphasis on sorcery reflected accusations by the authorities more than it did actual practice. Being threatened, the Church responded by virulent persecution. View quote
Barbara Tuchman