Reinhold Niebuhr
Reinhold Niebuhr
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhrwas an American theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. The brother of another prominent theologian, H. Richard Niebuhr, he is also known for having composed the Serenity Prayer, He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. Among his most influential books are Moral Man and Immoral Society and The Nature and Destiny of Man, the second of which Modern Library ranked one of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionReligious Leader
Date of Birth21 June 1892
CountryUnited States of America
Aim for the stars and maybe you'll reach the sky.
The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.
What is funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously.
Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.
The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself.
For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.
To the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible.
Human Beings are just good enough to make democracy possible...just bad enough to make it neccessary.
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.
Cheese, wine, and a friend must be old to be good.
The scientific observer of the realm of nature is in a sense naturally and inevitably disinterested. At least, nothing in the natural scene can arouse his bias. Furthermore, he stands completely outside of the natural so that his mind, whatever his limitations, approximates pure mind. The observer of the realm of history cannot be disinterested in the same way, for two reasons: first, he must look at history from some locus in history; secondly, he is to a certain degree engaged in its ideological conflicts.
The fence and the boundary line are the symbols of the spirit of justice. They set the limits upon each man's interest to prevent one from taking advantage of the other.
The stupidity of the average man will permit the oligarch, whether economic or political, to hide his real purposes from the scrutiny of his fellows and to withdraw his activities from effective control. Since it is impossible to count on enough moral goodwill among those who possess irresponsible power to sacrifice it for the good of the whole, it must be destroyed by coercive methods and these will always run the peril of introducing new forms of injustice in place of those abolished.
History is a realm in which human freedom and natural necessity are curiously intermingled.