Quotes from Reinhold Niebuhr

The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.

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.

The pretensions of final truth are always partlyan effort to obscure a darkly felt consciousness of the limits of human knowledge.

Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.

Man's capacity for evil makes democracy necessary and man's capacity for good makes democracy possible.

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.

If we survive danger, it steels our courage more than anything else.

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

Whether the man is an atheist or a Christian, I would judge him by his fruits, and I have therefore many agnostic friends.

All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.

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

It is the evil in man that makes democracy necessary, and man's belief in justice that makes democracy possible.

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

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.

Men have never been individually self-sufficient.

Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.

All you earnest young men out to save the world. . . please, have a laugh.

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.

O God give us serenity to accept what cannot be changed courage to change what should be changed and wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.

I think I should know how to educate a boy, but not a girl; I should be in danger of making her too learned.

Faith is the final triumph over incongruity the final assertion of the meaningfulness of existence.

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history therefore we must be saved by faith.