"In his fascinating treatise On Compromise, John Morley pointed out that even a man who is convinced that his own opinions are right is not necessarily intolerant; and he might have added that even those who are intolerant in private life are not necessarily believers in public coercion or persecution. The Bolshevik threat — "Be my brother, or I slay thee" — is the sign of a weak, as well as of a ferocious faith. It only requires a little common sense and a little knowledge of the world to recognise the truth of the old adage — "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." In Morley's words, "you have not converted a man because you have silenced him." Submission or acquiescence in a political system or a religious dogma when obtained by law, imprisonment, torture, threats or coercion of any kind "is as worthless and as essentially hypocritical as the conversion of an Irish pauper to Protestantism by means of soup tickets, or that of a savage to Christianity by the gift of a string of beads.""
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Academics from EnglandMembers of the Parliament of the United KingdomEditors from EnglandChief Secretaries for IrelandSecretaries of State for India (United Kingdom)
Original Language: English
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Sources
Francis Hirst, Liberty and Tyranny (1935), p. 283
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Morley%2C_1st_Viscount_Morley_of_Blackburn
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John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn
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