Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life's ethical problems. — 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
A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God. — 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
The society in which each man lives is at once the basis for, and the nemesis of, that fulness of life which… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Every experience proves that the real problem of our existence lies in the fact that we ought to love one another, but… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
The intimate relation between humor and faith is derived from the fact that both deal with the incongruities of our existence. Laughter… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can only be sustained by a spirit of… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
My personal attitude toward atheists is the same attitude that I have toward Christians, and would be governed by a very orthodox… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous… — 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
Faith is the final triumph over incongruity, the final assertion of the meaningfulness of existence. — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
I wouldn't judge a man by the presuppositions of his life, but only by the fruits of his life. And the fruits… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can be sustained by a spirit of love… — 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
The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it. — 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 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… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
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… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
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… — 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 individual has… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
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… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
