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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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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
Intimate
Measure
Requires
Group
Coercion
Groups
Cooperation
Social
Scale
Larger
Scales

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The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.
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Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history therefore we must be saved by faith.
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Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
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It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism.
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For man as an historical creature has desires of indeterminate dimensions.
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Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone therefore we are saved by love.
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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.
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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.
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Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.
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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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I think that the achievements of Catholicism on race are very, very impressive.
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If you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
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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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The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
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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.
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The churches that are most obviously democratic are most obviously given to race prejudice. I mean the churches that have absolute congregational control.
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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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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.
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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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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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