Tolerance, I believe, will be imperative after the establishment of peace. It’s always useful to take a concrete instance: and I have been asking myself how I should behave if, after peace was signed, I met Germans who had been fighting against us. I shouldn’t try to love them: I shouldn’t feel inclined. They have broken a window in my little ugly flat for one thing, and they have done other things which I need not specify. But I shall try to tolerate them, because it is common-sense, because in the post-war world we shall have to live with Germans […] not for any lofty reason, but because it is the next thing that will have to be done.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“The Unsung Virtue of Tolerance,” radio broadcast, BBC (Jul 1941)
    (Source)

Published as "Tolerance," Two Cheers for Democracy (1951).

 
Added on 17-Nov-22 | Last updated 14-Nov-22
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