A Quote by Alister E. McGrath

The 20th century gave rise to one of the greatest and most distressing paradoxes of human history: that the greatest intolerance and violence of that century were practiced by those who believed that religion caused intolerance and violence.

Alister E. McGrath

Quote Topics

Believed Caused Century Distressing Gave Greatest History Human Human History Intolerance Most Practiced Religion Rise Those Violence Were

Quote Author

Alister E. McGrath
Irish - Theologian
Born: January 23, 1953

Once one assumes an attitude of intolerance, there is no knowing where it will take one. Intolerance, someone has said, is violence to the intellect and hatred is violence to the heart.

Mahatma Gandhi

There was engrained poetry and then when you look back at our history and in the 20th century, the last century, probably the greatest writers of the 20th century were Irish. It became our only weapon, was our poetry, our music.

Gavin Friday

I abhor Earth Hour. Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the 20th century. Every material social advance in the 20th century depended on the proliferation of inexpensive and reliable electricity.

Ross McKitrick

D-Day represents the greatest achievement of the american people and system in the 20th century. It was the pivot point of the 20th century. It was the day on which the decision was made as to who was going to rule in this world in the second half of the 20th century. Is it going to be Nazism, is it going to be communism, or are the democracies going to prevail?

Stephen Ambrose

In every religion, there are those who would drape themselves in the mantle of belief and faith only to distort it's most sacred teachings - preaching intolerance and resorting to violence.

Hillary Clinton

Education in the key to preventing the cycle of violence and hatred that marred the 20th century from repeating itself in the 21st century.

Elie Wiesel

Violence is not the answer, it doesn’t work any more. We are at the end of the worst century in which the greatest atrocities in the history of the world have occurred... The nature of human beings must change. We must cultivate love and compassion.

Martin Scorsese

I do not think any religion encourages intolerance. Intolerance is the biggest mental defilement, and every religion tries to remove this defilement. So we must understand that whenever there is intolerance, this comes from an irreligious mind. It is not created by religion, and it is not in the mind of the religious person.

Lobsang Tenzin

I think Picasso was, without doubt, the greatest portraitist of the 20th century, if not any other century.

David Hockney

The recently ended twentieth century was characterized by a level of human rights violations unparalleled in all of human history. In his book Death by Government, Rudolph Rummel estimates some 170 million government-caused deaths in the twentieth century. The historical evidence appears to indicate that, rather than protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of their citizens, governments must be considered the greatest threat to human security.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe

I'm far from believing that we've solved the problem of violence in the 20th century and that's why I'm not discouraged that we still have the Biafras and the Northern Irelands and the East Pakistans and, for that matter, violence in American or Canadian cities.

Pierre Trudeau

Non-violence and cowardice are contradictory terms. Non-violence is the greatest virtue, cowardice the greatest vice. Non-violence springs from love, cowardice from hate. Non-violence always suffers, cowardice would always inflict suffering. Perfect non-violence is the highest bravery. Non-violent conduct is never demoralising; cowardice always is.

Mahatma Gandhi

The 19th century was a century of empires, the 20th century was a century of nation states. The 21st century will be a century of cities.

Wellington Webb

The greatest of all the accomplishments of 20th century science has been the discovery of human ignorance

Lewis Thomas

I was really interested in 20th century communalism and alternative communities, the boom of communes in the 60s and 70s. That led me back to the 19th century. I was shocked to find what I would describe as far more utopian ideas in the 19th century than in the 20th century. Not only were the ideas so extreme, but surprising people were adopting them.