tolerance

tolerance

January 1, 1950

This I Believe

Socrates and his modest disclaimer of final knowledge, [spoken in Greek] “The only thing I know is that I don’t know anything,” intended to expose those of his fellow citizens who professed knowledge without realizing their fundamental ignorance. In his...
January 1, 1950

This I Believe

I was brought up in the slums of Harlem, and in that violent jungle, the only thing I believed—in fact, the only thing anyone could believe—was in self-survival. At the age of 15, I left school and went to work....
January 1, 1950

This I Believe

I believe in the complexity of small and simple things, and I believe in the simplicity of things profound. I believe that one man’s failure may be as fine and high and laudable as another man’s triumph, that making the...
January 1, 1950

This I Believe

In order to explain what I believe, I must turn the pages of time backwards to Ancient Greece. There, its culture represented and was expressed by motto, “Nothing to excess.” This avoidance of extremes has always seemed to me the...
January 1, 1950

This I Believe

I was born in the West and spent my childhood on a roistering, balling cattle ranch, where birth was frequent and usual, and death normal, though sometimes sudden and violent. Surrounded as I was by buckaroos of all races, and...
January 1, 1950

This I Believe

The beliefs by which I live follow from an inner debate begun when I first read the Book of Job in English. I had known it only in Hebrew. There’s a verse in the thirteenth chapter, which literally translated would...
January 1, 1950

This I Believe

My basic belief is in the inherent dignity and unique worth of the individual personality. Assuredly, this belief in the sacredness of the individual personality was nurtured in a home where, as a child, I found response to essential needs,...
January 1, 1950

This I Believe

It was during a period when I was supposedly killed in action that I realized the worth of life itself. In a conversation with the survivor of the ship on which we had both been serving, as we waited to...
January 1, 1950

The Soundest Investment of All

I feel very presumptuous and uncomfortable about trying to explain out loud the things I believe in. But I do think that all human problems are in some way related to each other, so perhaps if people compare their experiences...