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 NIEBUHRA 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.
More Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
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We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization.
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I think there is and ultimate answer in a true religious faith, but it doesn’t give you any immediate answers, it doesn’t.
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We have, on the whole, more liberty and less equality than Russia has. Russia has less liberty and more equality. Whether democracy should be defined primarily in terms of liberty or equality is a source of unending debate.
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All this talk about atheistic materialism and God-fearing American I think is beside the point; it’s a rather vapid form of religion.
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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.
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Every experience proves that the real problem of our existence lies in the fact that we ought to love one another, but do not.
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The Communists do have a god, the Dialectic of History, which guarantees everything that they’re going to do and guarantees them victory; that’s why they’re fanatic.
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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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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.
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Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.
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Freedom is necessary for two reasons. It’s necessary for the individual, because the individual, no matter how good the society is, every individual has hopes, fears, ambitions, creative urges, that transcend the purposes of his society.
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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.
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
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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 are evidently limits to the achievements of science; and there are irresolvable contradictions both between prosperity and virtue, and between happiness and ”the good life,” which had not been anticipated in our philosophy.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR