Reinhold Niebuhr quotes - page 4

Change is the essence of life; be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become. (Reinhold Niebuhr)
As individuals, men believe they ought to love and serve each other and establish justice between each other. As racial, economic and national groups they take for themselves, whatever their power can command. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
Historical communities are, in short, more deeply involved in nature and time than the individual. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
The inevitable hypocrisy, which is associated with the all the collective activities of the human race, springs chiefly from this source: that individuals have a moral code which makes the actions of collective man an outrage to their conscience. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
We don't properly discriminate. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
A church has the right to set its own standards within its community. I don't think it has a right to prohibit birth control or to enforce upon a secular society its conception of divorce. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
The naïve faith of the proletarian is the faith of the man of action. Rationality belongs to the cool observers. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
There were experiences in previous centuries which might well have challenged this unqualified optimism. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
The inertia of society is so stubborn that no one will move against it, if he cannot believe that it can be more easily overcome than is actually the case. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about a particular degree of interest and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimatized. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness. (Reinhold Niebuhr)
We don't properly discriminate. We never discriminate properly when we're dealing with another group and one of the big problems about religion is that religious people don't know that they are probably as flagrant in these misjudgments as irreligious people. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
My personal attitude toward atheists is the same attitude that I have toward Christians, and would be governed by a very orthodox text: "By their fruits shall ye know them." I wouldn't judge a man by the presuppositions of his life, but only by the fruits of his life. And the fruits - the relevant fruits - are, I'd say, a sense of charity, a sense of proportion, a sense of justice. And whether the man is an atheist or a Christian, I would judge him by his fruits, and I have therefore many agnostic friends. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
Life has no meaning except in terms of responsibility. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
All you earnest young men out to save the world . . . please, have a laugh. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
The prophet himself stands under the judgment which he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
The final test of religious faith is whether it will enable men to endure insecurity without complacency or despair, whether it can so interpret the ancient verities that they will not become mere escape hatches from responsibilities but instruments of insights into what civilization means. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
There are evidently limits to the achievements of science and there are irresolvable contradictions both between prosperity and virtue, and between happiness and the good life,'' which had not been anticipated in our philosophy. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
A wise architect observed that you could break the laws of architectural art provided you had mastered them first. That would apply to religion as well as to art. Ignorance of the past does not guarantee freedom from its imperfections. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
Marxism is the modern form of Jewish prophecy. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
History is a realm in which human freedom and natural necessity are curiously intermingled. (Reinhold Niebuhr)
Aim for the stars and maybe you'll reach the sky. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
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 of science, for the sake of religion, for the sake of the conscience of the individual - this freedom is necessary for the individual. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
Humor is a prelude to faith and Laughter is the beginning of prayer. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
The naïve faith of the proletarian is the faith of the man of action. Rationality belongs to the cool observers. There is of course an element of illusion in the faith of the proletarian, as there is in all faith. But it is a necessary illusion, without which some truth is obscured. The inertia of society is so stubborn that no one will move against it, if he cannot believe that it can be more easily overcome than is actually the case. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr