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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

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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
Slow
Embarked
Indeed
Vindictive
Democracy
Democracies
Rather
Tolerable
Upon
Martial
Peace
Reluctant
War
Venture
Make
Equally

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Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone therefore we are saved by love.
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Whether the man is an atheist or a Christian, I would judge him by his fruits, and I have therefore many agnostic friends.
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Politics deals with a common-sense approach to the imponderables of history, that I think are obscured by a certain kind of rationalism.
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Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.
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The dimension of depth in the consciousness of religion creates the tension between what is and what ought to be. It bends the bow from which every arrow of moral action flies.
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If you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
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The prophet himself stands under the judgment which he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet.
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I think there is and ultimate answer in a true religious faith, but it doesn't give you any immediate answers, it doesn't.
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The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.
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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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A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.
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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.
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We judge the Russians because they're living under despotism and we don't like it, but we've gotten into a fix now where we're living in a common predicament, and we ought to recognize this common predicament.
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I've long ago felt, I have many Jewish friends and I very I think creative Jewish friends, and I've long felt that the average Christian didn't realize the tremendous capacity for civic righteousness among our Jewish people.
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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.
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I thank heaven I have often had it in my power to give help and relief, and this is still my greatest pleasure. If I could choose my sphere of action now, it would be that of the most simple and direct efforts of this kind.
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Faith is the final triumph over incongruity, the final assertion of the meaningfulness of existence.
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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.
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Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.
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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.
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