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
Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.
Man is both strong and weak, both free and bound, both blind and far-seeing. He stands at the juncture of nature and spirit; and is involved in both freedom and necessity.
Man is his own most vexing problem.
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.
Man is always worse than most people suspect, but also generally better than most people dream.
Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.
Men have never been individually self-sufficient.
For man as an historical creature has desires of indeterminate dimensions.
The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.
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 society in which each man lives is at once the basis for, and the nemesis of, that fulness of life which each man seeks.
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.
The chief source of man's inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.