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

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This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor.
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The Jews were the money-lenders of the Middle Ages so there's a stereotype of the slightly or more than slightly dishonest business man and this stereotype covers and obscures all the facts.
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I wouldn't judge a man by the presuppositions of his life, but only by the fruits of his life. And the fruits - the relevant fruits - are, I'd say, a sense of charity, a sense of proportion, a sense of justice.
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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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Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted and pure love without power is destroyed.
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Every experience proves that the real problem of our existence lies in the fact that we ought to love one another, but do not.
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The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power.
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Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.
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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.
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Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.
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If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
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Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history therefore we must be saved by faith.
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To the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible.
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History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life.
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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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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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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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Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.
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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.
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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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