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
The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
We don't properly discriminate. We never discriminate properly when we're dealing with another group and one of the big problems about religion is that religious people don't know that they are probably as flagrant in these misjudgments as irreligious people.
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.
Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.
The prophet himself stands under the judgment which he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet.
Perhapsthemost sublimeinsights oftheJewishprophets and the Christian gospel is the knowledge that since perfection is love, the apprehension of perfection is at once the means of seeing one's imperfections and the consoling assurance of grace which makes this realization bearable. This ultimate paradox of high religion is not an invention of theologians or priests. It is constantly validated by the most searching experiences of life.
It's always wise to seek the truth in our opponents' error, and the error in our own truth.
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.
If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
Life has no meaning except in terms of responsibility.
A church has the right to set its own standards within its community. I don't think it has a right to prohibit birth control or to enforce upon a secular society its conception of divorce and the indissolubility of the marriage tie.
One of the most pathetic aspects of human history is that every civilization expresses itself most pretentiously, compounds its partial and universal values most convincingly, and claims immortality for its finite existence at the very moment when the decay which leads to death has already begun.
It is the evil in man that makes democracy necessary, and man's belief in justice that makes democracy possible.