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 NIEBUHRThe history of mankind is a perennial tragedy; for the highest ideals which the individual may project are ideals which he can never realize in social and collective terms.
More Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
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To the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible.
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That’s much more dangerous than when people don’t believe anything; they may be confused, they may not have a sense of the meaning of life, but they’re not dangerous.
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History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life.
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Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life’s ethical problems.
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The development of a managerial class in Russia, combing economic with political power, is an historic refutation of the Marxist theory.
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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.
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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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The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.
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Man is endowed by nature with organic relations to his fellow men; and natural impulse prompts him to consider the needs of others even when they compete with his own.
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Marxism is the modern form of Jewish prophecy.
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To be religious is not to feel, but to be.
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The nuclear age has refuted the idea of progress and Marxism has been refuted by Stalinism. Therefore people have returned to the historic religion.
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A republic properly understood is a sovereignty of justice, in contradistinction to a sovereignty of will.
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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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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