Quote

Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.

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
Simple
Self
Judgments
Righteousness
Inevitable
Fruit
Judgment
Moral

More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

Image
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
Image
All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Change what cannot be accepted and accept what cannot be changed.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
To the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible.
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
It is my strong conviction that a realist conception of human nature should be made a servant of an ethic of progressive justice and should not be made into a bastion of conservatism, particularly a conservatism which defends unjust privileges.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.
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
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone therefore we are saved by love.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
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
Image
If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power.
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
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
Image
Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life's ethical problems.
Reinhold Niebuhr