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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.

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
Deeply
Evil
Done
Much
Good
People
Probe
Ultimately

More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

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A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.
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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.
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Better not read books in which you make acquaintance of the devil.
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The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.
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Change what cannot be accepted and accept what cannot be changed.
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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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Politics deals with a common-sense approach to the imponderables of history, that I think are obscured by a certain kind of rationalism.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Ultimately freedom is necessary for a society, because every despotic society - for instance, the Russian society - lives on the basis of a rather implausible dogma - the Marxist dogma of world redemption through Communism.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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One of the fundamental points about religious humility is you say you don't know about the ultimate judgment. It's beyond your judgment. And if you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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All this talk about atheistic materialism and God-fearing American I think is beside the point it's a rather vapid form of religion.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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I think that the achievements of Catholicism on race are very, very impressive.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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For man as an historical creature has desires of indeterminate dimensions.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone therefore we are saved by love.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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I'm not afraid of too many things, and I got that invincible kind of attitude from my father.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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The Jews were the money-lenders of the Middle Ages so there's a stereotype of the slightly or more than slightly dishonest business man and this stereotype covers and obscures all the facts.
Reinhold Niebuhr