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

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Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted and pure love without power is destroyed.
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We have had to learn that history is neither a God nor a redeemer.
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Man has always been his own most vexing problem.
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To be religious is not to feel, but to be.
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The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.
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All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
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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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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.
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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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You can't say that religion or irreligion will give us a particular answer to the nuclear dilemma.
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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.
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All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
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Rationalism belongs to the cool observer. But because of the stupidity of the average person, they follow not reason, but faith. This naïve faith, requires necessary illusions and emotionally potent oversimplifications, which are provided by the myth maker to keep the ordinary person on course.
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The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.
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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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It's always wise to seek the truth in our opponents' error, and the error in our own truth.
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If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
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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.
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