I think there is and ultimate answer in a true religious faith, but it doesn't give you any immediate answers, it doesn't. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
You can't say that religion or irreligion will give us a particular answer to the nuclear dilemma. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
God, give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
There must be a realm of truth beyond political competence, that's why there must be a separation of churches, but if religion… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
I thank heaven I have often had it in my power to give help and relief, and this is still my greatest… — 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
God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
The separation of church and state is necessary partly because if religion is good then the state shouldn't interfere with the religious… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Now when the historic religions give trivial answers to these very tragic questions of our day, when an evangelist says, for instance, we mustn't hope for a summit meeting, we must hope in Christ without spelling out what this could mean in our particular nuclear age. This is the irrelevant answer, when another Evangelist says if America doesn't stop being… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
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 Image
Perhapsthemost sublimeinsights oftheJewishprophets and the Christian gospel is the knowledge that since perfection is love, the apprehension of perfection is at once the means of seeing one's imperfections and the consoling assurance of grace which makes this realization bearable. This ultimate paradox of high religion is not an invention of theologians or priests. It is constantly validated by the most… — 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 Image
Liberalism makes this mistake in regard to private property and Marxism makes it in regard to socialized property... The Marxist illusion is partly derived from a romantic conception of human nature... It assumes that the socialization of property will eliminate human egotism... The development of a managerial class in Russia, combing economic with political power, is an historic refutation of… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
Human beings are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses. — 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 in consequences… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;… — 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 hopes, fears, ambitions, creative urges, that transcend the purposes of his society. Therefore we have a long history of freedom, where people try to extricate themselves from tyranny for the sake of art, for the sake… — 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 Image
All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Man is always worse than most people suspect, but also generally better than most people dream. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
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 for good reason, perhaps for bad reason, but anyway this is the problem we face in pluralistic society, that not necessarily every standard that every church tries to enforce upon the society is from the society's… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share
