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The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.

Reinhold Niebuhr

I’m not afraid of too many things, and I got that invincible kind of attitude from my father.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Attitude Father Kind
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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Country Democracy Liberty People
The Jews were the money-lenders of the Middle Ages so there’s a stereotype of the slightly or more than slightly dishonest business man and this stereotype covers and obscures all the facts.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Age Dishonest Facts Men
The fanatic is dangerous.
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Dangerous Fanatics Life People
The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Character Mean Real
All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its intentions.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Humans Intention Sin
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.
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Accomplished Accomplishment Love
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.
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Beautiful Complete Good Saved
For man as an historical creature has desires of indeterminate dimensions.
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Desire Historical Men
Civilization depends upon the vigorous pursuit of the highest values by people who are intelligent enough to know that their values are qualified by their interests and corrupted by their prejudices.
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Civilization Intelligent People Quality
We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Believe Exercise Passion
We judge the Russians because they’re living under despotism and we don’t like it, but we’ve gotten into a fix now where we’re living in a common predicament, and we ought to recognize this common predicament.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Common Judging Predicaments
It’s always wise to seek the truth in our opponents’ error, and the error in our own truth.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Errors Opponents Wise
There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.
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Cures Pride Religion
There must be equality of all men before God and in a democratic society. Now that’s one of the great achievements.
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Achievement Democratic Men
It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism.
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Charity Difficult Significant
We have to risk a nuclear war in order to escape capitulation to Communism. For all I know, we may stumble into this terrible war.
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Communism Order Risk War
For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.
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Democracy Method Problem
The old prose writers wrote as if they were speaking to an audience; while, among us, prose is invariably written for the eye alone.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Audience Eye Style
We ought to really at least recognize the common predicament of Communists and democrats – or Americans, whatever.
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Common Communist Predicaments
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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Confusion Political Relative Value
Politics deals with a common-sense approach to the imponderables of history, that I think are obscured by a certain kind of rationalism.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Common Kind Sense Thinking
The churches that are most obviously democratic are most obviously given to race prejudice. I mean the churches that have absolute congregational control.
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Church Congregational Mean Race
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
The nuclear age has refuted the idea of progress and Marxism has been refuted by Stalinism. Therefore people have returned to the historic religion.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Age Ideas People
Our dreams of bringing the whole of human history under the control of the human will are ironically refuted by the fact that no group of idealists can easily move the pattern of history toward the desired goal of peace and justice.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Drama Dream Moving
In the 17th and 18th centuries there was a kind of Protestantism that said, “If you could only get rid of the Bishop, then you’d be a true Christian”.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Bishops Christian Kind

The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.

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The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.

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