Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Evil
Done
Much
Good
People
Probe
Ultimately
Deeply

More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

Image
All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
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
Image
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone therefore we are saved by love.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
We have to risk a nuclear war in order to escape capitulation to Communism. For all I know, we may stumble into this terrible war.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
I think there is and ultimate answer in a true religious faith, but it doesn't give you any immediate answers, it doesn't.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
I don't know whether any religious leader would say that we must ultimately win, because we're on God's side. If they do say that, it's bad religion.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
The churches that are most obviously democratic are most obviously given to race prejudice. I mean the churches that have absolute congregational control.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Change what cannot be accepted and accept what cannot be changed.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
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
Image
If you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
It's always wise to seek the truth in our opponents' error, and the error in our own truth.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
There is no social evil, no form of injustice whether of the feudal or the capitalist order which has not been sanctified in some way or other by religious sentiment and thereby rendered more impervious to change.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
The prophet himself stands under the judgment which he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
Reinhold Niebuhr