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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

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

Happiness Joy Laughter
The pretensions of final truth are always partlyan effort to obscure a darkly felt consciousness of the limits of human knowledge.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Effort Finals Limits
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
Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Done Evil Good People
The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Conquer Historic Victory World
That’s much more dangerous than when people don’t believe anything; they may be confused, they may not have a sense of the meaning of life, but they’re not dangerous.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Dangerous Life Meaning More Much
A republic properly understood is a sovereignty of justice, in contradistinction to a sovereignty of will.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Democracy Justice Republic
All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Coercion Cooperation Groups
…(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
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
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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Average Christian Thinking
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
Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Fruit Self Simple
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
There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Cures Pride Religion
If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Courage Steel Survival

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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