The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR[There is] an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups.
More Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
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For man as an historical creature has desires of indeterminate dimensions.
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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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A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.
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The chief source of man’s inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.
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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.
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For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.
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Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.
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I know that the Communists are atheistic and godless, but I don’t think that that’s what’s primarily the matter with them. What’s primarily the matter with them is that they worship a false god.
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There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.
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The nuclear age has refuted the idea of progress and Marxism has been refuted by Stalinism. Therefore people have returned to the historic religion.
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The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.
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Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.
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The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.
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Man is endowed by nature with organic relations to his fellow men; and natural impulse prompts him to consider the needs of others even when they compete with his own.
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[There is] an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups.
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We misjudge anybody who’s different from us and the Jews diverge from our type, ethnically and religiously. That’s their chief offense, but there are particular causes.
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Aim for the stars and maybe you’ll reach the sky.
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All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
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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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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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Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.
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Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
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Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.
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The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
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If you equate God’s judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
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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