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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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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
Elements
Grant
Justice
Grants
Powerful
Display
Combines
Social
Element
Explains
Power
Latter
Previously
Generous
Suggested
Pity
Inclined
Genuine
Philanthropy

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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 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.
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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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The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.
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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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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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The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.
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Religion mustn't interfere with the state - so one of the basic Democratic principles as we know it in America is the separation of church and state.
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We have had to learn that history is neither a God nor a redeemer.
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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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Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.
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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.
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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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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.
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Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted and pure love without power is destroyed.
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That is one of the flagrant misconceptions about Catholicism in America that if a man is a Catholic he owes allegiance to what they say a foreign sovereign, or something like that.
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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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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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