Reinhold Niebuhr

's capacity formakespossible, but man's inclination tomakes democracy .

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 nature

is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.

— Reinhold Niebuhr life

Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics, Charles Scribner's Sons (1932)

— Reinhold Niebuhr politics

This insinuation of the interests of theinto even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makesan inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor.

— Reinhold Niebuhr men

Theof the average man will permit the , 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.

— Reinhold Niebuhr power

tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.

— Reinhold Niebuhr action

The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other , the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability toconflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.

— Reinhold Niebuhr life

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.

— Reinhold Niebuhr intelligence

Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.

— Reinhold Niebuhr life

The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power.

— Reinhold Niebuhr power

The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself.

— Reinhold Niebuhr society

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 life

Human beings are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses.

— Reinhold Niebuhr nature

All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.

— Reinhold Niebuhr

The na

— Reinhold Niebuhr

Human existence is obviously distinguished from animal life by its qualified participation in creation. Within limits it breaks the forms of nature and creates new configurations of vitality.

— Reinhold Niebuhr life

The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation, from the , (1941)

— Reinhold Niebuhr nature

Human existence is obviously distinguished from animal life by its qualified participation in creation. Within limits it breaks the forms of nature and creates new configurations of vitality. Its transcendence over natural process offers it the opportunity of interfering with the established forms and unities of vitality as nature knows them.

— Reinhold Niebuhr life

The modern man is . . . certain about his essential virtue . . . [and since] he does not see that he has a freedom of spirit which transcends both nature and reason . . . [he] is unable to understand the real pathos of his defiance of nature's and reason's laws. He always imagines himself betrayed into this defiance either by some accidental corruption in his past history or by some sloth of reason. Hence he hopes for redemption, either through a program of social reorganization or by some scheme of education.

— Reinhold Niebuhr hope

The brotherhood of the community is indeed the ground in which the individual is ethically realized. But the community is the frustration as well as the realization of individual life. Its collective egotism is an offense to his conscience; its institutional injustices negate the ideal of justice; and such brotherhood as it achieves is limited by ethnic and geographic boundaries. Historical communities are, in short, more deeply involved in nature and time than the individual.

— Reinhold Niebuhr life

This statement, or variants of it, have often been attributed to others, including , but without sources. Though similar prayers may have existed, the work seems to be Niebuhr's. He never copyrighted the prayer, and it has been used in many variants.

— Reinhold Niebuhr work

, give us grace to accept withthe things that cannot be , to change the things which should be changed, and theto distinguish the one from the other. Living one day at a time, Enjoying one moment at a time, Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, Taking, asdid, Thisworld as it is, Not as I would have it, Trusting that You will make all things right, If I surrender to Your will, So that I may be reasonablyin this life, And supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.

— Reinhold Niebuhr life

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.

— Reinhold Niebuhr wisdom

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

— Reinhold Niebuhr wisdom

The fact that the prevailing mood of modern culture was able to transmute the original pessimism of romanticism into an optimistic creed proves the power of this mood. Only occasionally the original pessimism erupts in full vigor, as in the thought of a Schopenhauer or Nietzsche. The subjugation of romantic pessimism, together with the transmutation of Marxist catastrophism establishes historical optimism far beyond the confines of modern rationalism. Though there are minor dissonances the whole chorus of modern culture learned to sing the new song of hope in remarkable harmony. The redemption of mankind, by whatever means, was assured for the future. It was, in fact, assured by the future.

— Reinhold Niebuhr hope

There were experiences in previous centuries which might well have challenged this unqualified optimism. But the expansion of man's power over nature proceeded at such a pace that all doubts were quieted, allowing the nineteenth century to become the “century of hope” and to express the modern mood in its most extravagant terms. History, refusing to move by the calendar, actually permitted the nineteenth century to indulge its illusions into the twentieth. Then came the deluge. Since 1914 one tragic experience has followed another, as if history had been designed to refute the vain delusions of modern man.

— Reinhold Niebuhr hope

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.

— Reinhold Niebuhr love

The Irony of American History, Charles Scribner’s Sons (1952)

— Reinhold Niebuhr story

[The value and dignity of the individual] is threatened whenever it is assumed that individual desires, hopes and ideals can be fitted with frictionless harmony into the collective purposes of man. The individual is not discrete. He cannot find his fulfillment outside of the community; but he also cannot find fulfillment completely within society. In so far as he finds fulfillment within society he must abate his individual ambitions. He must 'die to self' if he would truly live. In so far as he finds fulfillment beyond every historical community he lives his life in painful tension with even the best community, sometimes achieving standards of conduct which defy the standards of the community with a resolute "we must obey God rather than man."

— Reinhold Niebuhr life

We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about a particular degree of interest and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimatized.

— Reinhold Niebuhr art

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.

— Reinhold Niebuhr dreams

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.

— Reinhold Niebuhr dreams

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.

— Reinhold Niebuhr love

The separation of church and state ispartly because ifis good then the state shouldn't interfere with the religious vision or with the religious prophet. There must be a realm ofbeyondcompetence, that's why there must be a separation of churches, but if religion is bad and a bad religion is one that gives an ultimate sanctity to some particular cause. Then religion mustn't interfere with the state — so one of the basic Democratic principles as we know it in America is the separation of church and state. … 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.

— Reinhold Niebuhr religion

Not necessarily every standard that every church tries to enforce upon the society is from the society's standpoint a good standard.

— Reinhold Niebuhr society

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.

— Reinhold Niebuhr religion

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.

— Reinhold Niebuhr art

I know that the Communists are atheistic and godless, but I don't think that that's what's primarily the matter with them. What's primarily the matter with them is that they worship a false god. That's much more dangerous than when people don't believe anything; they may be confused, they may not have a sense of the , but they're not dangerous. The fanatic is dangerous. The Communists do have a god, the Dialectic of History, which guarantees everything that they're going to do and guarantees them victory; that's why they're fanatic.

— Reinhold Niebuhr god

The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will and sentiment. Nonetheless, the human situation is so, and this is why I think that the Christian faith is right as against simple forms of secularism. That it believes that there is in man a radical freedom, and this freedom is creative but it is also destructive — and there's nothing that prevents this from being both creative and destructive. That's why history is not an answer to our problem, because history complicates, enlarges every problem of human existence.

— Reinhold Niebuhr faith

Freedom is necessary for two reasons. It's necessary for the individual, because the individual, no matter how good the society is, every individual has hopes, fears, ambitions, creative urges, that transcend the purposes of his society. Therefore we have a long history of freedom, where people try to extricate themselves from tyranny for the sake of art, for the sake of science, for the sake of religion, for the sake of the conscience of the individual — this freedom is necessary for the individual.

— Reinhold Niebuhr hope

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.

— Reinhold Niebuhr past

My personal attitude towardis the same attitude that I have toward Christians, and would be governed by a very orthodox text: "By their fruits shall ye know them." I wouldn't judge a man by the presuppositions of his life, but only by the fruits of his life. And the fruits — the relevant fruits — are, I'd say, a sense of charity, a sense of proportion, a sense of justice. And whether the man is an atheist or a Christian, I would judge him by his fruits, and I have therefore many agnostic friends.

— Reinhold Niebuhr life

It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism.

— Reinhold Niebuhr reason

One of the fundamental points about religiousis 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.

— Reinhold Niebuhr religion

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.

— Reinhold Niebuhr wisdom

All you earnest young men out to save the world. . . please, have a laugh.

— Reinhold Niebuhr men

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