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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.

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
Well
Cosmic
Love
Conquer
World
Cross
Crosses
Victory
Easy
Symbolizes
Truth
Conquers
Wells
Historic

More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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.
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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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Better not read books in which you make acquaintance of the devil.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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
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Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted and pure love without power is destroyed.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Man has always been his own most vexing problem.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Since inequalities of privilege are greater than could possibly be defended rationally, the intelligence of privileged groups is usually applied to the task of inventing specious proofs for the theory that universal values spring from, and that general interests are served by, the special privileges which they hold.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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
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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
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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
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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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
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We don't properly discriminate. We never discriminate properly when we're dealing with another group and one of the big problems about religion is that religious people don't know that they are probably as flagrant in these misjudgments as irreligious people.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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
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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr