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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
Democratic
Principles
State
Church
Religion
Mustn
America
Interfere
States
Separation
Basic

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History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life.
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Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.
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I'm not afraid of too many things, and I got that invincible kind of attitude from my father.
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The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself.
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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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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
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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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Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.
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Aim for the stars and maybe you'll reach the sky.
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That is one of the flagrant misconceptions about Catholicism in America that if a man is a Catholic he owes allegiance to what they say a foreign sovereign, or something like that.
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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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We have had to learn that history is neither a God nor a redeemer.
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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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There has been a religious revival because - let me put it like this, the people that weren't traditionally religious, conventionally religious, had a religion of their own in my youth. These were liberals who believed in the idea of progress or they were Marxists. Both of these secular religions have broken down.
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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.
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Certainly, anybody who says, in the eyes of God, is pretentious.
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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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Nothing worth doing can be accomplished in a single lifetime.
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Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer … Laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humour is fulfilled by faith.
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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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