Harold J. Laski: “I reject, therefore, the idea of a real will, and, still more, the idea that there is a common will in society.”

It has been the historic character of persecution always to degrade the persecutor and to strengthen the persecuted by drawing attention to their claims.

The essence of the persecuting position is always that the persecutor has hold of truth and that he would betray its service by allowing it to be questioned.

The intolerance may be Catholic, when it insists that a unity of outlook is essential for the preservation of society; or it may be Protestant when, as with Calvin and the Socinians, it holds that the blasphemous nature of the belief…

When attacks on liberty are political or economic, it is their motive rather than their nature that changes.