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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.
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
Simple
Sentiments
Less
Complexes
Good
Analysis
World
Complex
Scientific
Rational
Becomes
Situation
Sentiment
More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr
Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.
Reinhold Niebuhr
It's always wise to seek the truth in our opponents' error, and the error in our own truth.
Reinhold Niebuhr
If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
Reinhold Niebuhr
The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history therefore we must be saved by faith.
Reinhold Niebuhr
I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Man has always been his own most vexing problem.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life's ethical problems.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Whether the man is an atheist or a Christian, I would judge him by his fruits, and I have therefore many agnostic friends.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.
Reinhold Niebuhr
History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life.
Reinhold Niebuhr
I thank heaven I have often had it in my power to give help and relief, and this is still my greatest pleasure. If I could choose my sphere of action now, it would be that of the most simple and direct efforts of this kind.
Reinhold Niebuhr
All this talk about atheistic materialism and God-fearing American I think is beside the point it's a rather vapid form of religion.
Reinhold Niebuhr
We have had to learn that history is neither a God nor a redeemer.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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.
Reinhold Niebuhr