Whether the man is an atheist or a Christian, I would judge him by his fruits, and I have therefore many agnostic friends.
REINHOLD NIEBUHRThe 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.
More Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
-
-
The prophet himself stands under the judgment which he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR -
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 -
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 -
A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR -
A republic properly understood is a sovereignty of justice, in contradistinction to a sovereignty of will.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR -
The significance of the law of love is precisely that it is not just another law, but a law which transcends all law.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR -
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR -
Marxism is the modern form of Jewish prophecy.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR -
Cheese, wine, and a friend must be old to be good.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR -
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 -
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR -
The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR -
Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR -
That’s why history is not an answer to our problem, because history complicates, enlarges every problem of human existence. Now, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries didn’t believe this.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR -
Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR






