Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes

The modern man is . . . certain about his essential virtue . . . [and since] he does not see that he has a freedom of spirit which transcends both nature and reason . . . [he] is unable to understand the real pathos of his defiance of nature's and reason's laws. He always imagines himself betrayed into this defiance either by some accidental corruption in his past history or by some sloth of reason. Hence he hopes for redemption, either through a program of social reorganization or by some scheme of education.

The preservation of a democratic civilization requires the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove.

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.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.

Forgiveness is the final form of love.

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

I know that the Communists are atheistic and godless, but I don't think that that's what's primarily the matter with them. What's primarily the matter with them is that they worship a false god. That's much more dangerous than when people don't believe anything; they may be confused, they may not have a sense of the meaning of life, but they're not dangerous. The fanatic is dangerous. The Communists do have a god, the Dialectic of History, which guarantees everything that they're going to do and guarantees them victory; that's why they're fanatic.

Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.

Absolutism, in both religious and political realism, is a splendid incentive to heroic action, but a dangerous guide in immediate and concrete situations.

The extension of human sympathies [toward ever-larger communities] has... resulted in the creation of larger units of conflict without abolishing conflict. So civilization has become a device for delegating the vices of individuals to larger and larger communities.

Social justice is an application of the law of love to the sociopolitical sphere, and love is the motivating energy of the struggle for justice. The meaning of justice cannot be taken directly from the principles. It is determined only in the interaction of love and situation, through the mediation of the principles of equality, freedom, and order.10

The moral achievement of statesmen must be judged in terms which take account of the limitations of human society which the statesman must, and the prophet need not, consider.

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

The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.