…(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 NIEBUHRThe measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses.
More Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
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Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.
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History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life.
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Aim for the stars and maybe you’ll reach the sky.
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The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.
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All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
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All known existence points beyond itself.
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The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
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Freedom is necessary for two reasons. It’s necessary for the individual, because the individual, no matter how good the society is, every individual has hopes, fears, ambitions, creative urges, that transcend the purposes of his society.
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The pretensions of final truth are always partlyan effort to obscure a darkly felt consciousness of the limits of human knowledge.
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God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
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All this talk about atheistic materialism and God-fearing American I think is beside the point; it’s a rather vapid form of religion.
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That is the truth about man – that he has a curious kind of dignity, but also a curious kind of misery, and that these forms of agnosticism don’t understand.
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The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.
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Every experience proves that the real problem of our existence lies in the fact that we ought to love one another, but do not.
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At least, nothing in the natural scene can arouse his bias. Furthermore, he stands completely outside of the natural so that his mind, whatever his limitations, approximates pure mind.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR