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There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Real Running Sacrifice
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
All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Coercion Cooperation Groups
It is the evil in man that makes democracy necessary, and man’s belief in justice that makes democracy possible.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Evil Justice Men
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

Achievement Good Life Philosophy
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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Civilization Intelligent People Quality
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
That is the truth about man – that he has a curious kind of dignity, but also a curious kind of misery, and that these forms of agnosticism don’t understand.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Dignity Men Misery
For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Democracy Method Problem
That is one of the flagrant misconceptions about Catholicism in America that if a man is a Catholic he owes allegiance to what they say a foreign sovereign, or something like that.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Catholic Country Men Misconception
…(I)ndividual selfhood is expressed in the self’s capacity for self-transcendence and not in its rational capacity for conceptual and analytic procedures.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Self Spirituality Transcendence
Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Admirer Few Friends Talent
The prophet himself stands under the judgment which he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Judgment Prophet
No nation can say, ‘We will capitulate to tyranny rather than accept a speculative fate – to accept an absolute fate in alternative to a speculative one’ – no nation can do that.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Accepting Alternatives Fate
A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Genuine Mysterious Mystery
Every experience proves that the real problem of our existence lies in the fact that we ought to love one another, but do not.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Brotherhood Lying Real

There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.

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There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.

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