…(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 NIEBUHRThe essence of man is his freedom. Sin is committed in that freedom. Sin can therefore not be attributed to a defect in his essence. It can only be understood as a self-contradiction, made possible by the fact of his freedom but not following necessarily from it.
More Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
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Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life’s ethical problems.
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Marxism is the modern form of Jewish prophecy.
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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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The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
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A dogma which was intended to guarantee the economic freedom of the individual became the “ideology” of vast corporate structures of a later period of capitalism, used by them, and still used, to prevent a proper political control of their power.
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The fanatic is dangerous.
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We ought to really at least recognize the common predicament of Communists and democrats – or Americans, whatever.
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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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Liberalism and Marxism share a common illusion of the “children of light.” Neither understands property as a form of power which can be used in either its individual or its social form as an instrument of particular interest against the general interest.
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History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life.
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There must be equality of all men before God and in a democratic society. Now that’s one of the great achievements.
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The old prose writers wrote as if they were speaking to an audience; while, among us, prose is invariably written for the eye alone.
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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.”
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Every experience proves that the real problem of our existence lies in the fact that we ought to love one another, but do not.
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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