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 NIEBUHRGod, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
More Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
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There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.
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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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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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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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I’ve long ago felt, I have many Jewish friends and I very I think creative Jewish friends, and I’ve long felt that the average Christian didn’t realize the tremendous capacity for civic righteousness among our Jewish people.
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If we can find God only as he is revealed in nature we have no moral God.
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The pretensions of final truth are always partlyan effort to obscure a darkly felt consciousness of the limits of human knowledge.
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I know that the Communists are atheistic and godless, but I don’t think that that’s what’s primarily the matter with them. What’s primarily the matter with them is that they worship a false god.
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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.
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In the Old Testament, the God of the Prophets never was completely on Israel’s side. There was a primitive national religion, but it was always a transcendent God who had judgment first in the House of God.
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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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Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can only be sustained by a spirit of love which goes beyond justice.
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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.
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The development of a managerial class in Russia, combing economic with political power, is an historic refutation of the Marxist theory.
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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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR