To the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible. - Reinhold Niebuhr

The consistent optimism of our liberal culture has prevented modern democratic societies both from gauging the perils of freedom accurately and from appreciating democracy fully as the only alternative to injustice and oppression. When this optimism is not qualified to accord with the real and complex facts of human nature and history, there is always a danger that sentimentality will give way to despair and that a too consistent optimism will alternate with a too consistent pessimism.

Change what cannot be accepted and accept what cannot be changed.

There are no simple congruities in life or history. The cult of happiness erroneously assumes them.