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Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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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
Democracy
Problem
Proximate
Insoluble
Findings
Finding
Solutions
Problems

More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

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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.
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The significance of the law of love is precisely that it is not just another law, but a law which transcends all law.
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If you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
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Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history therefore we must be saved by faith.
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I think that when we believe that something is right, there's a serious ambivalence about it. On one hand, you say, because it's right, it must be victorious. On the other hand, you say, it's right whether it's victorious or not. And this is what I believe about a free society.
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Aim for the stars and maybe you'll reach the sky.
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All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
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Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.
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All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
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The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
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The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself.
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The history of mankind is a perennial tragedy for the highest ideals which the individual may project are ideals which he can never realize in social and collective terms.
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Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.
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Change what cannot be accepted and accept what cannot be changed.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Religion, declares the modern man, is consciousness of our highest social values. Nothing could be further from the truth. True religion is a profound uneasiness about our highest social values.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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
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Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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To be religious is not to feel, but to be.
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It's always wise to seek the truth in our opponents' error, and the error in our own truth.
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