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

Reinhold Niebuhr

The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Justice Politics World
Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Done Evil Good People
[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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Group Men Vices
To be religious is not to feel, but to be.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Feels Religious
Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.
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Reason Satisfaction Selfish
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 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 more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will and sentiment.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Analysis Simple World
A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.
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Genuine Mysterious Mystery
Adam Smith’s was a real universalism in intent. Laissez Faire was intended to establish a world community as well as a natural harmony of interests within each nation… But the “children of darkness” were able to make good use of his creed.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Children Community Real
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
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Accomplishment Lifetime Success
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
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
There must be equality of all men before God and in a democratic society. Now that’s one of the great achievements.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Achievement Democratic Men
A dogma which was intended to guarantee the economic freedom of the individual became the “ideology” of vast corporate structures of a later period of capitalism, used by them, and still used, to prevent a proper political control of their power.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Capitalism Dogma Economic Freedom Guarantee
The separation of church and state is necessary partly because if religion is good then the state shouldn’t interfere with the religious vision or with the religious prophet.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Country Giving People Religious

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

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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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