"The bigot is not the man who thinks his opponent mistaken. The bigot is the man who will not think him mistaken."

Subject to this consideration, I have often considered the common definition, or at least the common sense , of words like bigot and fanatic. The homeless intellectualism of an unhappy age often uses the terms for anybody who is sure that he is right and other people are wrong. Every sane man ought to be sure he is right; and if he is right, then those who contradict him are wrong. I have always found it best to understand by the word “bigot” a man who cannot imagine how other men can go wrong, granted that they do go wrong. If I say I am quite sure a man is wrong to be a Christian Scientist, I am simply a believer- a believer in my own beliefs. But if I say I cannot conceive how a man can become a Christian Scientist, I am a bigot. I am, in that particular and personal case, a liar. I can quite easily imagine a man falling into the error called Christian Science. It comes of two very natural modern moods- of being sick of science and of never having heard of Christianity. And if I say the Christian Scientist must be a quack looking for fees, or even a lunatic drugging himself with fictions, then I am a bigot. The bigot is not the man who thinks his opponent mistaken. The bigot is the man who will not think him mistaken.

-March 7, 1925, Illustrated London News