The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege… — Reinhold Niebuhr Copy Share Image
Since inequalities of privilege are greater than could possibly be defended rationally, the intelligence of privileged groups is usually applied to the… — 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
“It is my strong conviction that a realist conception of human nature should be made a servant of an ethic of progressive… — 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
