black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

If you equate God’s judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.

Reinhold Niebuhr

For man as an historical creature has desires of indeterminate dimensions.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Desire Historical Men
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
All known existence points beyond itself.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Existence Known Points
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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Element Justice Powerful
Therefore we have a long history of freedom, where people try to extricate themselves from tyranny for the sake of art, for the sake of science, for the sake of religion, for the sake of the conscience of the individual – this freedom is necessary for the individual.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Conscience History People Sake Themselves Tyranny
Cheese, wine, and a friend must be old to be good.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Cheese Good Wine
We misjudge anybody who’s different from us and the Jews diverge from our type, ethnically and religiously. That’s their chief offense, but there are particular causes.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Causes Different Type
My personal attitude toward atheists is the same attitude that I have toward Christians, and would be governed by a very orthodox text: “By their fruits shall ye know them.”
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Atheist Attitude Christian
Justice requires that we carefully weigh rights and privileges and assure that each member of a community receives his due share. Love does not weigh rights and privileges too carefully because it prompts each to bear the burden of the other.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Asure Community Justice Love Prelivege
All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its intentions.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Humans Intention Sin
For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Democracy Method Problem
Nothing worth doing can be accomplished in a single lifetime.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Accomplished Life Lifetime Single
History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

History Law May
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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Hypocrisy Moments Self
The 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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

May Realizing Tragedy
To be religious is not to feel, but to be.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Feels Religious

If you equate God’s judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

If you equate God’s judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes