The churches that are most obviously democratic are most obviously given to race prejudice. I mean the churches that have absolute congregational control.
REINHOLD NIEBUHRAll social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
More Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
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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.”
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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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Liberalism and Marxism share a common illusion of the “children of light.” Neither understands property as a form of power which can be used in either its individual or its social form as an instrument of particular interest against the general interest.
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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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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.
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The chief source of man’s inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.
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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.
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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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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.
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Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
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Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.
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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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All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
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Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.
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If you equate God’s judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR