The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.
REINHOLD NIEBUHRThe pretensions of final truth are always partlyan effort to obscure a darkly felt consciousness of the limits of human knowledge.
More Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
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[There is] an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups.
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I’ve long ago felt, I have many Jewish friends and I very I think creative Jewish friends, and I’ve long felt that the average Christian didn’t realize the tremendous capacity for civic righteousness among our Jewish people.
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It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism.
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All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
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The churches that are most obviously democratic are most obviously given to race prejudice. I mean the churches that have absolute congregational control.
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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.
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We have to risk a nuclear war in order to escape capitulation to Communism. For all I know, we may stumble into this terrible war.
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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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The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.
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A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.
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I know that the Communists are atheistic and godless, but I don’t think that that’s what’s primarily the matter with them. What’s primarily the matter with them is that they worship a false god.
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Cheese, wine, and a friend must be old to be good.
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We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.
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In the 17th and 18th centuries there was a kind of Protestantism that said, “If you could only get rid of the Bishop, then you’d be a true Christian”.
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All known existence points beyond itself.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR