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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
Ethical
Men
Tendencies
Larger
Vices
Among
Delegated
Groups
Increasing
Modern
Tendency
Imagine

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The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will and sentiment.
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Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
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Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.
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Nothing worth doing can be accomplished in a single lifetime.
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One of the fundamental points about religious humility is you say you don't know about the ultimate judgment. It's beyond your judgment. And if you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
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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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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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It is my strong conviction that a realist conception of human nature should be made a servant of an ethic of progressive justice and should not be made into a bastion of conservatism, particularly a conservatism which defends unjust privileges.
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We misjudge anybody who's different from us and the Jews diverge from our type, ethnically and religiously. That's their chief offense, but there are particular causes.
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Better not read books in which you make acquaintance of the devil.
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Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.
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Change what cannot be accepted and accept what cannot be changed.
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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.
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There is no social evil, no form of injustice whether of the feudal or the capitalist order which has not been sanctified in some way or other by religious sentiment and thereby rendered more impervious to change.
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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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