The significance of the law of love is precisely that it is not just another law, but a law which transcends all law.
REINHOLD NIEBUHRThe old prose writers wrote as if they were speaking to an audience; while, among us, prose is invariably written for the eye alone.
More Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
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Civilization depends upon the vigorous pursuit of the highest values by people who are intelligent enough to know that their values are qualified by their interests and corrupted by their prejudices.
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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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All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
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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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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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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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All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
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To be religious is not to feel, but to be.
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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.
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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.
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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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If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
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A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.
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All known existence points beyond itself.
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History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR