The fanatic is dangerous.
REINHOLD NIEBUHRThe 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.
More Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
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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.
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The separation of church and state is necessary partly because if religion is good then the state shouldn’t interfere with the religious vision or with the religious prophet.
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You can’t say that religion or irreligion will give us a particular answer to the nuclear dilemma.
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Politics deals with a common-sense approach to the imponderables of history, that I think are obscured by a certain kind of rationalism.
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The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses.
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Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith; and laughter is the beginning of prayer … Laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humour is fulfilled by faith.
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Nothing worth doing can be accomplished in a single lifetime.
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Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.
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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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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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We have, on the whole, more liberty and less equality than Russia has. Russia has less liberty and more equality. Whether democracy should be defined primarily in terms of liberty or equality is a source of unending debate.
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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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Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life’s ethical problems.
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The prophet himself stands under the judgment which he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet.
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We ought to really at least recognize the common predicament of Communists and democrats – or Americans, whatever.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR