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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.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Reason Satisfaction Selfish
To be religious is not to feel, but to be.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Feels Religious
History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

History Law May
Marxism is the modern form of Jewish prophecy.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Form Modern
Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Goodness Love Power
The 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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Essence Men Self
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.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Character Mean Real
We ought to really at least recognize the common predicament of Communists and democrats – or Americans, whatever.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Common Communist Predicaments
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.”
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Judging Religious Thinking
If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Courage Steel Survival
My personal attitude toward atheists is the same attitude that I have toward Christians, and would be governed by a very orthodox text: “By their fruits shall ye know them.”
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Atheist Attitude Christian
A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Genuine Mysterious Mystery
Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Admirer Few Friends Talent
All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Grace Men Serenity
I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Clubs Thinking Together
Cheese, wine, and a friend must be old to be good.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Cheese Good Wine

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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The old prose writers wrote as if they were speaking to an audience; while, among us, prose is invariably written for the eye alone.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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