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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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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
Groups
Delegated
Modern
Increasing
Imagine
Tendency
Men
Ethical
Tendencies
Larger
Vices
Among
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Faith is the final triumph over incongruity, the final assertion of the meaningfulness of existence.
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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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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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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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Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.
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We have had to learn that history is neither a God nor a redeemer.
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Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.
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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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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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Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone therefore we are saved by love.
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A church has the right to set its own standards within its community. I don't think it has a right to prohibit birth control or to enforce upon a secular society its conception of divorce and the indissolubility of the marriage tie.
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Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
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The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power.
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The churches that are most obviously democratic are most obviously given to race prejudice. I mean the churches that have absolute congregational control.
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Change what cannot be accepted and accept what cannot be changed.
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Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.
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Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.
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It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism.
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