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That is the truth about man - that he has a curious kind of dignity, but also a curious kind of misery, and that these forms of agnosticism don't understand.

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
Misery
Dignity
Understand
Form
Truth
Also
Agnosticism
Kind
Curious
Men
Forms

More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Since inequalities of privilege are greater than could possibly be defended rationally, the intelligence of privileged groups is usually applied to the task of inventing specious proofs for the theory that universal values spring from, and that general interests are served by, the special privileges which they hold.
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Better not read books in which you make acquaintance of the devil.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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I think there is and ultimate answer in a true religious faith, but it doesn't give you any immediate answers, it doesn't.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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The essence of man is his freedom. Sin is committed in that freedom. Sin can therefore not be attributed to a defect in his essence. It can only be understood as a self-contradiction, made possible by the fact of his freedom but not following necessarily from it.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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.
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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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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The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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Man has always been his own most vexing problem.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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I think that the achievements of Catholicism on race are very, very impressive.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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To be religious is not to feel, but to be.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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If you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
Reinhold Niebuhr