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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.

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
Political
Relative
Life
Confusion
Absolutes
Introduces
Source
Introducing
Dangerous
Realm
Democracy
Frequently
Values
Realms
Religion
Precisely

More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

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Every experience proves that the real problem of our existence lies in the fact that we ought to love one another, but do not.
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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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[There is] an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups.
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For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.
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Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life's ethical problems.
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The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.
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If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
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This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor.
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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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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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If you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
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Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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No nation can say, 'We will capitulate to tyranny rather than accept a speculative fate - to accept an absolute fate in alternative to a speculative one' - no nation can do that.
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
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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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
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Nothing worth doing can be accomplished in a single lifetime.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.
Reinhold Niebuhr