Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles.
Attributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky
Not found in their works No source has been found in Fyodor Dostoevsky's works.Draft entry, not yet reviewed
Where it really comes from
No source in Dostoevsky's writings has been found. Lead Stories (August 2021) traced the Russian form to Facebook memes of about October 2019. Reference librarians at the University of Toronto found it neither in Dostoevsky nor in Bulgakov's novel or the screenplay of the film. The modern political sense of «толерантность» (tolerance) is itself anachronistic for him: in the source texts the word occurs only once, as «толерантно» in Demons, where the editors gloss it as a French borrowing.
Where it circulates
A political meme. It began in Russian on Facebook around 2019, without a name, on stills of Professor Preobrazhensky from the 1988 film of Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog. By 2021 it was circulating in English and other languages with Dostoevsky's portrait.
What it says
A complaint that the demand not to offend will end by silencing intelligent people for the sake of fools.
Use with care
A recent internet meme, used in culture-war and anti-vaccine posts to borrow a classic's authority. Do not cite it as Dostoevsky.
Forms in circulation
- meme
Кажется, скоро толерантность дойдет до того, что умным запретят думать, потому что это оскорбляет чувства тупых.
The Russian meme of 2019, at first unattributed.seen
Tags
What it is made of
Nearby
- If the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness. alike 44%
- The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. alike 40%
- It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise. alike 39%
- Money is coined liberty, and so it is ten times dearer to the man who is deprived of freedom. alike 37%
Checked against
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