Quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

“Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful 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.”

“Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed”

“God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that can be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish one from the other”

“Forgiveness is the final form of love.”

“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.”

“There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war”

“The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism”

“The Christian doctrine of sin in its classical form offends both rationalists and moralists by maintaining the seemingly absurd position that man sins inevitably and by a fateful necessity but that he is nevertheless to be held responsible for actions which are prompted by an ineluctable [inescapable] fate.”

“Evil is not to be traced back to the individual but to the collective behavior of humanity.”

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.

Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.

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.

Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.

The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.

The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.

Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.

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.

I wonder if anyone who needs a snappy song service can really appreciate the meaning of the cross.

Rationality belongs to the cool observer, but because of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not reason, but faith, and the naive faith requires necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications which are provided by the myth-maker to keep ordinary person on course.

Forgiveness is the final form of love.