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Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life's ethical problems.

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
Problems
Modern
Ways
Nations
Problem
Escapes
Way
Nationalism
Men
Ethical
Life
Effective

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Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.
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Man has always been his own most vexing problem.
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I think that the Christian faith is right as against simple forms of secularism. That it believes that there is in man a radical freedom, and this freedom is creative but it is also destructive. And there's nothing that prevents this from being both creative and destructive.
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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.
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History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life.
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Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
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Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.
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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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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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I think I have one answer, that is partly religious and partly secular and that is to say, we ought to at least recognize that we and the Russians are in a common predicament. That would be religious in the sense, Judge not lest you be judged.
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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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Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.
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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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It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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The essence of man is his freedom. Sin is committed in that freedom. Sin can therefore not be attributed to a defect in his essence. It can only be understood as a self-contradiction, made possible by the fact of his freedom but not following necessarily from it.
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I thank heaven I have often had it in my power to give help and relief, and this is still my greatest pleasure. If I could choose my sphere of action now, it would be that of the most simple and direct efforts of this kind.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.
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For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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To be religious is not to feel, but to be.
Reinhold Niebuhr