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…(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

The chief source of man’s inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Inhumanity Limit Man Measure
We judge the Russians because they’re living under despotism and we don’t like it, but we’ve gotten into a fix now where we’re living in a common predicament, and we ought to recognize this common predicament.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Common Judging Predicaments
The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Historical Persistance Reckoning
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
Nothing worth doing can be accomplished in a single lifetime.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Accomplished Life Lifetime Single
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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Approximately Complete Leat Mind
[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 democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Democracy Method Problem
Our dreams of bringing the whole of human history under the control of the human will are ironically refuted by the fact that no group of idealists can easily move the pattern of history toward the desired goal of peace and justice.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Drama Dream Moving
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Accomplishment Lifetime Success
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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Ambition Art Society Two
There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Cures Pride Religion
The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will and sentiment.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Analysis Simple World
I’m not afraid of too many things, and I got that invincible kind of attitude from my father.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Attitude Father Kind
It’s always wise to seek the truth in our opponents’ error, and the error in our own truth.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Errors Opponents Wise
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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Justice Life Rights

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

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

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