For man as an historical creature has desires of indeterminate dimensions. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
“To the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible.” — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
History is a realm in which human freedom and natural necessity are curiously intermingled. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
We have had to learn that history is neither a God nor a redeemer. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
The history of mankind is a perennial tragedy; for the highest ideals which the individual may project are ideals which he can… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
That's why history is not an answer to our problem, because history complicates, enlarges every problem of human existence. Now, the eighteenth… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Politics deals with a common-sense approach to the imponderables of history, that I think are obscured by a certain kind of rationalism. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Freedom is necessary for two reasons. It's necessary for the individual, because the individual, no matter how good the society is, every… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
“The same strength which has extended our power beyond a continent has also interwoven our destiny with the destiny of many peoples… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Now we're living in a nuclear age, and the science that was supposed to be automatically for human welfare has become a… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Our dreams of bringing the whole of human history under the control of the human will are ironically refuted by the fact… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
The scientific observer of the realm of nature is in a sense naturally and inevitably disinterested. At least, nothing in the natural… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
One of the most pathetic aspects of human history is that every civilization expresses itself most pretentiously, compounds its partial and universal… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
There are evidently limits to the achievements of science; and there are irresolvable contradictions both between prosperity and virtue, and between happiness and ''the… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
Perhapsthemost sublimeinsights oftheJewishprophets and the Christian gospel is the knowledge that since perfection is love, the apprehension of perfection is at once the means… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
The essence of man is his freedom. Sin is committed in that freedom. Sin can therefore not be attributed to a defect in his… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
Liberalism makes this mistake in regard to private property and Marxism makes it in regard to socialized property... The Marxist illusion is partly derived… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
Human beings are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
Freedom is necessary for two reasons. It's necessary for the individual, because the individual, no matter how good the society is, every individual has… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
The pretensions of final truth are always partlyan effort to obscure a darkly felt consciousness of the limits of human knowledge. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
Man is always worse than most people suspect, but also generally better than most people dream. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
When a church reaches up beyond its group and tries to enforce its standards upon a society that doesn't accept these standards, and perhaps… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
...(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 Niebuhr Copy Share
The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
