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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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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
Satisfaction
Legitimate
Others
Grant
Reason
Grants
Tends
Check
Checks
Impulse
Selfish
Impulses

More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

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I think there is and ultimate answer in a true religious faith, but it doesn't give you any immediate answers, it doesn't.
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I'm not afraid of too many things, and I got that invincible kind of attitude from my father.
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Aim for the stars and maybe you'll reach the sky.
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Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.
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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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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.
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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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A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.
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Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our own standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.
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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.
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Not only in America but in Germany, in France since the war, in Germany after the First World War, the Germany of Adenauer, these are the creative relationships of Catholicism to a free society that the average American doesn't fully appreciate.
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To the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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To be religious is not to feel, but to be.
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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Our dreams of bringing the whole of human history under the control of the human will are ironically refuted by the fact that no group of idealists can easily move the pattern of history toward the desired goal of peace and justice. The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.
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I think that the achievements of Catholicism on race are very, very impressive.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Change what cannot be accepted and accept what cannot be changed.
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Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone therefore we are saved by love.
Reinhold Niebuhr