Reinhold Niebuhr Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was an American theologian. A Protestant, he is best known for his study of the task of relating the Christian faith to the realities of modern politics and diplomacy. He was an important contributor to modern "just war" more..more..

“ Reinhold Niebuhr:The modern man is... certain about his essential virtue... [and since] he does not see that he has a freedom of spirit which transcends both nature and reason... [he] is unable to understand the real pathos of his defiance of nature's and reason's laws. He always imagines himself betrayed into this defiance either by some accidental corruption in his past history or by some sloth of reason. Hence he hopes for redemption, either through a program of social reorganization or by some scheme of education. #Opportunity #Opportunity

“ Reinhold Niebuhr:The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power. #Power #Power

“ Reinhold Niebuhr:All you earnest young men out to save the world please, have a laugh. #Laughter#Laughter

“ Reinhold Niebuhr:Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone therefore, we are saved by love. #Love#Love

“ Reinhold Niebuhr:Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life. #Reason#Reason

“ Reinhold Niebuhr: Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can be sustained by a spirit of love which goes beyond justice. #Family#Family

“ Reinhold Niebuhr: Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another. #Extremes and Extremists#Extremes and Extremists

“ Reinhold Niebuhr:The brotherhood of the community is indeed the ground in which the individual is ethically realized. But the community is the frustration as well as the realization of individual life. Its collective egotism is an offense to his conscience; its institutional injustices negate the ideal of justice; and such brotherhood as it achieves is limited by ethnic and geographic boundaries. Historical communities are, in short, more deeply involved in nature and time than the individual. #Men#Men

“ Reinhold Niebuhr: God give me the serenity to accept things which cannot be changed;Give me courage to change things which must be changed;And the wisdom to distinguish one from the other. #Uncategorised#Uncategorised

“ Reinhold Niebuhr: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. #Writers and Writing #Writers and Writing

“ Reinhold Niebuhr: I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth. #Journalism and Journalists #Journalism and Journalists

“ Reinhold Niebuhr: 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. #Change#Change

“ Reinhold Niebuhr:Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted and pure love without power is destroyed. #Love#Love

“ Reinhold Niebuhr: If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else. #Danger#Danger

“ Reinhold Niebuhr:God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. #Courage#Courage

“ Reinhold Niebuhr:Our dreams of a pure virtue are dissolved in a situation in which it is possible to exercise the virtue of responsibility toward a community of nations only by courting the prospective guilt of the atomic bomb. #Dreams#Dreams

“ Reinhold Niebuhr:All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion. #Cooperation #Cooperation

“ Reinhold Niebuhr: There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion. #Pride#Pride

“ Reinhold Niebuhr:Man is endowed by nature with organic relations to his fellow men; and natural impulse prompts him to consider the needs of others even when they compete with his own. #Desire#Desire

“ Reinhold Niebuhr: A wise architect observed that you could break the laws of architectural art provided you had mastered them first. That would apply to religion as well as to art. Ignorance of the past does not guarantee freedom from its imperfections. #Religion#Religion

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