Tolerance, like any aspect of peace, is forever a work in progress, never completed, and, if we're as intelligent as we like to think we are, never abandoned.
Interpretation
Tolerance is an ongoing journey that requires constant effort and commitment.
This quote by Octavia Butler emphasizes that tolerance is not a fixed state but an evolving practice that requires continuous attention and growth. It suggests that true intelligence involves recognizing the complexities of peace and actively working towards greater acceptance and understanding among people.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of diversity in communities.
What I'm working on now - I'm back to fantasy, although considering that it's me, I'm turning it into a kind of science fantasy. It's a vampire story - but my vampires are biological vampires. They didn't become vampires because someone bit them; they were born that way.
Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.
Here I was into astronomy, and here into anthropology, and there I go into geology. It was much more fun to be able to research and write about whatever I wanted to.
There is no end To what a living world Will demand of you.
You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.
Better to stay alive," I said. "At least while there's a chance to get free." I thought of the sleeping pills in my bag and wondered just how great a hypocrite I was. It was so easy to advise other people to live with their pain.
Great ideas come from everywhere if you just listen and look for them. You never know who's going to have a great idea.
We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.
When we step out of our normal world and leave behind us all the usual barriers and prejudices, we tend to become more adventurous.
When the pain overtakes you, reach inside. Gather the broken pieces, and hand them to God. Ask Him to remake your heart. Different, this time. Stronger. More beautiful. This is how we are made, and remade by the Maker.
A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal. And it all comes from lying - lying to others and to yourself.
Know how to choose well. Most of life depends thereon. It needs good taste and correct judgment, for which neither intellect nor study suffices.
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