Q0480

Hu Shi

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Tolerance is the foundation of all freedom; without tolerance, there is no freedom.
Thinker Hu Shi
School Experimentalism
Source Tolerance and Freedom
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Tolerance and Freedom, within the tradition of Experimentalism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of philosophy, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Hu Shi's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Hu Shi. (n.d.). Tolerance is the foundation of all freedom; without tolerance, there is no freedom. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0480

MLA: Hu Shi. “Tolerance is the foundation of all freedom; without….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0480.

Chicago: Hu Shi. “Tolerance is the foundation of all freedom; without….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0480.

Same thinker

More from Hu Shi

  1. Boldly hypothesize; carefully verify.
  2. Study problems, import theories, reorganize the national heritage, and recreate civilization.
  3. Having become a pawn that has crossed the river, one can only press desperately forward.

All quotations by Hu Shi

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme