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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.

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
State
Church
Mustn
Religion
Interfere
America
Separation
States
Basic
Democratic
Principles

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Man is both strong and weak, both free and bound, both blind and far-seeing. He stands at the juncture of nature and spirit and is involved in both freedom and necessity.
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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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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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Change what cannot be accepted and accept what cannot be changed.
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Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
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Politics deals with a common-sense approach to the imponderables of history, that I think are obscured by a certain kind of rationalism.
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I think that the achievements of Catholicism on race are very, very impressive.
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For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.
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Better not read books in which you make acquaintance of the devil.
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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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Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.
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The history of mankind is a perennial tragedy for the highest ideals which the individual may project are ideals which he can never realize in social and collective terms.
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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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Aim for the stars and maybe you'll reach the sky.
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Democracies are indeed slow to make war, but once embarked upon a martial venture are equally slow to make peace and reluctant to make a tolerable, rather than a vindictive, peace.
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All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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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Religion, declares the modern man, is consciousness of our highest social values. Nothing could be further from the truth. True religion is a profound uneasiness about our highest social values.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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All this talk about atheistic materialism and God-fearing American I think is beside the point it's a rather vapid form of religion.
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If you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
Reinhold Niebuhr