Reinhold Niebuhr quotes

Reinhold Niebuhr was an influential American theologian, ethicist, and public intellectual. Known for his work in Christian realism and his reflections on the nature of power and human morality, he deeply shaped 20th-century political and religious thought. He is perhaps best remembered for the "Serenity Prayer" and his analysis of the complexities of justice. Here are 102 of his quotes:

Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. (Reinhold Niebuhr)
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. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
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. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
Forgiveness is the final form of love. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
Despotism, which we regard with abhorrence, is rather too plausible in decaying feudal, agrarian, pastoral societies. That's why we must expect to have many a defeat before we'll have an ultimate victory in this contest with Communism. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
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. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
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. (Reinhold Niebuhr)
This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
Our dreams of bringing the whole of human history under the control of the human will are ironically refuted by the fact that no group of idealists can easily move the pattern of history toward the desired goal of peace and justice. The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
Human beings are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses. View quote
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. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
Our dreams of a pure virtue are dissolved in a situation in which it is possible to exercise the virtue of responsibility toward a community of nations only by courting the prospective guilt of the atomic bomb. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
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. (Reinhold Niebuhr)
While it is possible for intelligence to increase the range of benevolent impulse, and thus prompt a human being to consider the needs and rights of other than those to whom he is bound by organic and physical relationship, there are definite limits in the capacity of ordinary mortals which makes it impossible for them to grant to others what they claim for themselves. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
We Protestants ought to humbly confess that the theater and the sports have done more for race amity, for race understanding than, on the whole, the Protestant Church in certain type, in certain parts of the nation. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
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. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr
All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion. View quote
Reinhold Niebuhr