Quote

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.

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
Action
Dimensions
Every
Tension
Creates
Bends
Depth
Arrow
Consciousness
Arrows
Ought
Flies
Moral
Dimension
Religion
Bows

More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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All this talk about atheistic materialism and God-fearing American I think is beside the point it's a rather vapid form of religion.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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What is so funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously. Laughter is the same and healthy response to the innocent foibles of men and even to some which are not innocent.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Certainly, anybody who says, in the eyes of God, is pretentious.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Faith is the final triumph over incongruity, the final assertion of the meaningfulness of existence.
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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Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.
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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I've long ago felt, I have many Jewish friends and I very I think creative Jewish friends, and I've long felt that the average Christian didn't realize the tremendous capacity for civic righteousness among our Jewish people.
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
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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.
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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Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Man is both strong and weak, both free and bound, both blind and far-seeing. He stands at the juncture of nature and spirit and is involved in both freedom and necessity.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer … Laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humour is fulfilled by faith.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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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If you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Ultimately freedom is necessary for a society, because every despotic society - for instance, the Russian society - lives on the basis of a rather implausible dogma - the Marxist dogma of world redemption through Communism.
Reinhold Niebuhr