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What is funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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 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
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
You can’t say that religion or irreligion will give us a particular answer to the nuclear dilemma.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Answers Giving Nuclear
I think I have one answer, that is partly religious and partly secular; and that is to say, we ought to at least recognize that we and the Russians are in a common predicament. That would be religious in the sense, “Judge not lest you be judged.”
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Judging Religious Thinking
[There is] an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

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

Desire Historical Men
Certainly, anybody who says, “in the eyes of God,” is pretentious.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Anybody Eye Pretentious
For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Democracy Method Problem
All known existence points beyond itself.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

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

Attitude Father Kind
Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Admirer Few Friends Talent
The fanatic is dangerous.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Dangerous Fanatics Life People
To the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Effort Order Social
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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Children Community Real
It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Charity Difficult Significant

What is funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously.

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What is funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously.

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