Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Truth
Also
Agnosticism
Kind
Curious
Men
Forms
Misery
Dignity
Understand
Form

More quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

Image
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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The prophet himself stands under the judgment which he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
I don't know whether any religious leader would say that we must ultimately win, because we're on God's side. If they do say that, it's bad religion.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
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
Image
Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
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
Image
The churches that are most obviously democratic are most obviously given to race prejudice. I mean the churches that have absolute congregational control.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
We don't properly discriminate. We never discriminate properly when we're dealing with another group and one of the big problems about religion is that religious people don't know that they are probably as flagrant in these misjudgments as irreligious people.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Certainly, anybody who says, in the eyes of God, is pretentious.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
Aim for the stars and maybe you'll reach the sky.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
You can't say that religion or irreligion will give us a particular answer to the nuclear dilemma.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
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.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Image
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
Image
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.
Reinhold Niebuhr