Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Reinhold Niebuhr
Age: 78 †
Born: 1892
Born: June 21
Died: 1971
Died: June 1
Ethicist
Philosopher
Political Scientist
Theologian
University Teacher
Wright City
Missouri
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
Results
Situations
Situation
Consequences
War
Tyranny
Refusal
Political
Consequence
Inheritance
May
Worse
Historic
Even
Result
Aggression
However
Imperfect
Civilization
Defend
More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr
I think that the Christian faith is right as against simple forms of secularism. That it believes that there is in man a radical freedom, and this freedom is creative but it is also destructive. And there's nothing that prevents this from being both creative and destructive.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone therefore we are saved by love.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.
Reinhold Niebuhr
What is so funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously. Laughter is the same and healthy response to the innocent foibles of men and even to some which are not innocent.
Reinhold Niebuhr
I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Democracies are indeed slow to make war, but once embarked upon a martial venture are equally slow to make peace and reluctant to make a tolerable, rather than a vindictive, peace.
Reinhold Niebuhr
I think that the achievements of Catholicism on race are very, very impressive.
Reinhold Niebuhr
If you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
Reinhold Niebuhr
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr
The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will and sentiment.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.
Reinhold Niebuhr
The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself.
Reinhold Niebuhr
All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Whether the man is an atheist or a Christian, I would judge him by his fruits, and I have therefore many agnostic friends.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Nothing worth doing can be accomplished in a single lifetime.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life's ethical problems.
Reinhold Niebuhr
We misjudge anybody who's different from us and the Jews diverge from our type, ethnically and religiously. That's their chief offense, but there are particular causes.
Reinhold Niebuhr
The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Rationalism belongs to the cool observer. But because of the stupidity of the average person, they follow not reason, but faith. This naïve faith, requires necessary illusions and emotionally potent oversimplifications, which are provided by the myth maker to keep the ordinary person on course.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Certainly, anybody who says, in the eyes of God, is pretentious.
Reinhold Niebuhr