R. Niebuhr Quotes & Sayings

Even as rigorous a determinist as Karl Marx, who at times described the social behaviour of the bourgeoisie in terms which suggested a problem in social physics, could subject it at other times to a withering scorn which only the presupposition of moral responsibility could justify. — Reinhold Niebuhr

Toleration of people who differ in convictions and habits requires a residual awareness of the complexity of truth and the possibility of opposing view having some light on one or the other facet of a many-sided truth. — Reinhold Niebuhr

The dimension of depth in the consciousness of religion creates the tension between what is and what ought to be. It bends the bow from which every arrow of moral action flies. — Reinhold Niebuhr

Human beings are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses. — Reinhold Niebuhr

We have, on the whole, more liberty and less equality than Russia has. Russia has less liberty and more equality. Whether democracy should be defined primarily in terms of liberty or equality is a source of unending debate. — Reinhold Niebuhr

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

[There is] an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups. — Reinhold Niebuhr

All men are naturally included to obscure the morally ambiguous element in their political cause by investing it with religious sanctity. — Reinhold Niebuhr

The church conference begins and ends by attempting to arouse an emotion of the ideal, usually in terms of personal loyalty to the person of Jesus, but very little is done to attach the emotion to specific tasks and projects. Is the industrial life of our day unethical? Are nations imperialistic? Is the family disintegrating? — Reinhold Niebuhr

Everyone has some kind of philosophy, some general worldview, which to men of other views will seem mythological. — H. Richard Niebuhr

Change what cannot be accepted and accept what cannot be changed. — Reinhold Niebuhr

The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends. — Reinhold Niebuhr

Human Beings are just good enough to make democracy possible ... just bad enough to make it neccessary. — Reinhold Niebuhr

If a minister wants to be a man among men he need only to stop creating devotion to abstract ideals which every one accepts in theory and denies in practice, and to agonize about their validity and practicability in the social issues which he and others face in our present civilization. — Reinhold Niebuhr

The chief source of man's inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men. — Reinhold Niebuhr

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. — Reinhold Niebuhr

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

As racial, economic and national groups, they take for themselves, whatever their power can command. — Reinhold Niebuhr

Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life's ethical problems. — Reinhold Niebuhr

My personal attitude toward atheists is the same attitude that I have toward Christians, and would be governed by a very orthodox text: "By their fruits shall ye know them." I wouldn't judge a man by the presuppositions of his life, but only by the fruits of his life. And the fruits - the relevant fruits - are, I'd say, a sense of charity, a sense of proportion, a sense of justice. And whether the man is an atheist or a Christian, I would judge him by his fruits, and I have therefore many agnostic friends. — Reinhold Niebuhr

The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self mastery. — Reinhold Niebuhr

Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument. — Reinhold Niebuhr

However much human ingenuity may increase the treasures which nature provides for the satisfaction of human needs, they can never be sufficient to satisfy all human wants; for man, unlike other creatures, is gifted and cursed with an imagination which extends his appetites beyond the requirements of subsistence. Human — Reinhold Niebuhr

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

The discussions of the prior generation, shaped by H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture (see chapter three above), still presumed "gospel" and "culture" as two disparate and divergent categories and realities. An incarnational and pentecostal approach to culture realizes that while distinct, the gospel always comes through culture and that culture can - indeed, must! - be redeemed for the purposes of the gospel. — Amos Yong

One of the fundamental points about religious humility is you say you don't know about the ultimate judgment. It's beyond your judgment. And if you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion. — Reinhold Niebuhr

The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it. — Reinhold Niebuhr

Authentic religion teaches one to imagine the other
to consider another's vulnerability and humanity. The beginning of ethics is this trancendent imagination' (Ingrid Mattson). The message, she said, to be expounded by preacher and politician alike is that all human beings possess a God-given dignity. — Gustav Niebuhr

Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others. — Reinhold Niebuhr

We have had to learn that history is neither a God nor a redeemer. — Reinhold Niebuhr