Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was an American Reformed theologian and the principal exponent of Christian realism in twentieth-century social thought. After thirteen years as a parish minister in Detroit during the early industrial era, he taught for three decades at Union Theological Seminary in New York. The quotes below are attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, organized by topic.
Browse Reinhold Niebuhr by topic
Reinhold Niebuhr on God
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“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
One of the most commonly quoted forms. -
“But the sense of humour remains healthy only when it deals with immediate issues and faces the obvious and surface irrationalities. It must move toward faith or sink into despair when the ultimate issues are raised. That is why there is laughter in the vestibule of the temple, the echo of laughter in the temple itself, but only faith and prayer, and no laughter, in the holy of holies.”
Brown, Robert McAfee, ed. "Humour and Faith (1945)" . The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses (January 1986 ed.). Yale University Press. p. 59. ISBN 978-0300040012 . Retrieved on 30 November 2021 . -
“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.”
The Mike Wallace Interview(1958) -
“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.”
The Mike Wallace Interview(1958)
Reinhold Niebuhr on Knowledge
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“The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944)”
Man 's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary . -
“Man does not know himself truly except as he knows himself confronted by God . Only in that confrontation does he become aware of his full stature and freedom and of the evil in him.”
The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation(1941) | vol. 1, p. 131 -
“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.”
The Serenity Prayer(c. 1942) | Niebuhr's preferred form, as declared by his widow -
“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.”
The Mike Wallace Interview(1958)
Reinhold Niebuhr on Life
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“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.”
pp. 27-28 -
“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.”
Moral Man and Immoral Society(1932) | p.1
Reinhold Niebuhr on Love
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Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr:
“Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; pure love without power is destroyed.”
Reinhold Niebuhr on Mind
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“Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.”
p.29 -
“Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man . His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life . Reason may extend and stabilise, but it does not create , the capacity to affirm other life than his own.”
Moral Man and Immoral Society(1932) | p.26
Reinhold Niebuhr on Nature
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“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.”
p.2 -
“Human beings are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses.”
Moral Man and Immoral Society(1932) | p.25
Reinhold Niebuhr on Politics
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“Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”
The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944) -
Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr:
“The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.”
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“The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.”
As quoted in obituary '"Reinhold Niebuhr Is Dead; Protestant Theologian, 78" by Alden Whitman in The New York Times (2 June 1971) -
“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.”
p.21
Reinhold Niebuhr on Time
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“Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.”
p. 63 -
“An irrevocable defeat of a socio-historical cause which gives meaning to the life of the individual must create a complete sense of meaninglessness unless the individual is sustained by a religion which interprets such defeats from the aspect of the eternal .”
The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation(1941) | vol. 1, p. 69
Reinhold Niebuhr on Virtue
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“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.”
p.45 -
“The extension of human sympathies [toward ever-larger communities] has... resulted in the creation of larger units of conflict without abolishing conflict. So civilization has become a device for delegating the vices of individuals to larger and larger communities.”
Moral Man and Immoral Society(1932) | p. 49 -
“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 .”
The Irony of American History(1952)