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The chief source of man’s inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Our dreams of bringing the whole of human history under the control of the human will are ironically refuted by the fact that no group of idealists can easily move the pattern of history toward the desired goal of peace and justice.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Drama Dream Moving
[There is] an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Group Men Vices
The essence of man is his freedom. Sin is committed in that freedom. Sin can therefore not be attributed to a defect in his essence. It can only be understood as a self-contradiction, made possible by the fact of his freedom but not following necessarily from it.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Essence Men Self
It is the evil in man that makes democracy necessary, and man’s belief in justice that makes democracy possible.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Evil Justice Men
I’m not afraid of too many things, and I got that invincible kind of attitude from my father.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Attitude Father Kind
Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Admirer Few Friends Talent
The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Historical Persistance Reckoning
That’s why history is not an answer to our problem, because history complicates, enlarges every problem of human existence. Now, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries didn’t believe this.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Answers Believe Problem
…(I)ndividual selfhood is expressed in the self’s capacity for self-transcendence and not in its rational capacity for conceptual and analytic procedures.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Self Spirituality Transcendence
We judge the Russians because they’re living under despotism and we don’t like it, but we’ve gotten into a fix now where we’re living in a common predicament, and we ought to recognize this common predicament.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Common Judging Predicaments
History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

History Law May
The stupidity of the average man will permit the oligarch, whether economic or political, to hide his real purposes from the scrutiny of his fellows and to withdraw his activities from effective control.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Real Running Sacrifice
The development of a managerial class in Russia, combing economic with political power, is an historic refutation of the Marxist theory.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Comb Marxist Theory
All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Grace Men Serenity
The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Conquer Historic Victory World
The churches that are most obviously democratic are most obviously given to race prejudice. I mean the churches that have absolute congregational control.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Church Congregational Mean Race

The chief source of man’s inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.

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The chief source of man’s inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.

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