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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
States
Separation
Basic
Democratic
Principles
State
Church
Religion
Mustn
America
Interfere

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Better not read books in which you make acquaintance of the devil.
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A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.
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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.
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The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
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Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.
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All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
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A church has the right to set its own standards within its community. I don't think it has a right to prohibit birth control or to enforce upon a secular society its conception of divorce and the indissolubility of the marriage tie.
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Certainly, anybody who says, in the eyes of God, is pretentious.
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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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What is so funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously. Laughter is the same and healthy response to the innocent foibles of men and even to some which are not innocent.
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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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Change what cannot be accepted and accept what cannot be changed.
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It's always wise to seek the truth in our opponents' error, and the error in our own truth.
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There must be a realm of truth beyond political competence, that's why there must be a separation of churches, but if religion is bad and a bad religion is one that gives an ultimate sanctity to some particular cause.
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Faith is the final triumph over incongruity, the final assertion of the meaningfulness of existence.
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The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.
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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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We judge the Russians because they're living under despotism and we don't like it, but we've gotten into a fix now where we're living in a common predicament, and we ought to recognize this common predicament.
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We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.
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The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.
Reinhold Niebuhr