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There was a time when I had all the answers. My real growth began when I discovered that the questions to which I had the answers were not the important questions.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Marxism is the modern form of Jewish prophecy.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Form Modern
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
Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Age Bound Leaps Reaction
This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Hypocrisy Moments Self
Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith; and laughter is the beginning of prayer … Laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humour is fulfilled by faith.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Facts Laughter Prayer
Justice requires that we carefully weigh rights and privileges and assure that each member of a community receives his due share. Love does not weigh rights and privileges too carefully because it prompts each to bear the burden of the other.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Asure Community Justice Love Prelivege
I think there is and ultimate answer in a true religious faith, but it doesn’t give you any immediate answers, it doesn’t.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Giving Religious Thinking
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
Therefore we have a long history of freedom, where people try to extricate themselves from tyranny for the sake of art, for the sake of science, for the sake of religion, for the sake of the conscience of the individual – this freedom is necessary for the individual.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Conscience History People Sake Themselves Tyranny
No nation can say, ‘We will capitulate to tyranny rather than accept a speculative fate – to accept an absolute fate in alternative to a speculative one’ – no nation can do that.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Accepting Alternatives Fate
The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Historical Persistance Reckoning
To the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Effort Order Social
History is a realm in which human freedom and natural necessity are curiously intermingled.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Humans Natural Realms
I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Clubs Thinking Together
The nuclear age has refuted the idea of progress and Marxism has been refuted by Stalinism. Therefore people have returned to the historic religion.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Age Ideas People
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Accomplished Accomplishment Love

There was a time when I had all the answers. My real growth began when I discovered that the questions to which I had the answers were not the important questions.

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There was a time when I had all the answers. My real growth began when I discovered that the questions to which I had the answers were not the important questions.

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