Politics Quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

10 Politics quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

All Politics quotes Reinhold Niebuhr’s page

Niebuhr’s ten compact statements distill his belief that moral complexity underlies political action. The quotes are brief yet thought‑provoking, offering a quick entry point into his realist philosophy.

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The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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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.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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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

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Liberalism makes this mistake in regard to private property and Marxism makes it in regard to socialized property... The Marxist illusion is…

Reinhold Niebuhr

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“Rationality belongs to the cool observer, but because of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not reason, but faith, and…

Reinhold Niebuhr

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Marxism was the social creed and the social cry of those classes who knew by their miseries that the creed of the…

Reinhold Niebuhr

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Adam Smith's was a real universalism in intent. Laissez Faire was intended to establish a world community as well as a natural…

Reinhold Niebuhr

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Rationalism belongs to the cool observer. But because of the stupidity of the average person, they follow not reason, but faith. This…

Reinhold Niebuhr

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Human beings are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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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

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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

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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

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The pretensions of final truth are always partlyan effort to obscure a darkly felt consciousness of the limits of human knowledge.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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Man is always worse than most people suspect, but also generally better than most people dream.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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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

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...(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

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The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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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

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