Henry Peter Brougham Quotes

The Islam Ataturk professed contained nothing contrary to reason and progress.

Let us therefore reject all superstition in order to become more human; but in speaking against fanaticism, let us not imitate the fanatics: they are sick men in delirium who want to chastise their doctors. Let us assuage their ills, and never embitter them, and let us pour drop by drop into their souls the divine balm of toleration, which they would reject with horror if it were offered to them all at once.

With wisdom we shall learn liberality.

The greatest and noblest pleasure which we have in this world is to discover new truths, and the next is to shake off old prejudices.

Although there exist in the world today some microbes of the soul, such as discrimination and aggression, science was and still is the core of progress for humanity and the continuity of civilization.

There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.

Before anything else, we need a new age of Enlightenment. Our present political systems must relinquish their claims on truth, justice and freedom and have to replace them with the search for truth, justice, freedom and reason.

We've known for a long time, and I think culturally we've accepted, that diversity is an important thing in the work of knowledge.

The long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

The liberal mind regards not what nation or climate it springs up in, nor what color or complexion the man is of.

The ideal of progress, freedom of thought, and the decline of ecclesiastical power go together.

When the tempers of men are softened as well as their knowledge improved, this humanity appears still more conspicuous, and is the chief characteristic which distinguishes a civilized age from times of barbarity and ignorance. Factions are then less inveterate, revolutions less tragical, authority less severe, and seditions less frequent.

Liberalism is the answer for which modernity is the question

I believe in liberality. I’m a through New Yorker and have no narrow prejudices.

If we learn from those only, of whose lives and opinions we altogether approve, we shall have to turn from many of the highest and profoundest minds.

He who is master of all opinions can never be the bigot of any.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.

Liberalism is: To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly

I still consider myself a liberal in the Enlightenment sense of the word. But I have to admit that being a liberal these days is confusing.

The people that don't want change, the ones that don't see how removing Confederate flag creates so much more opportunities for our sport to grow - they don't want our sport to grow.

A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

To live and work successfully with others requires more than faithfulness to one's concrete aims. It requires an intellectual commitment to a type of order in which, even on issues which to one are fundamental, others are allowed to pursue different ends. It is for this reason that to the liberal neither moral nor religious ideals are proper objects of coercion, while both conservatives and socialists recognize no such limits.

Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance.

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.

We have to start with the little babies who are born now, socialize them in freedom and critical thinking. We don't have to throw away their faith. People confuse the two, thinking if you are enlightened that means apostasy. It doesn't.