Quotes from Reinhold Niebuhr
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.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
There must be equality of all men before God and in a democratic society. Now that's one of the great achievements.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
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.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
Man has always been his own most vexing problem.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
Where, but in the simplicity of the Gospel, can you hear about both the dignity of man and the misery of man?
- Reinhold Niebuhr
For man as an historical creature has desires of indeterminate dimensions.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
That is one of the flagrant misconceptions about Catholicism in America that if a man is a Catholic he owes allegiance to what they say a foreign sovereign, or something like that.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
Man is always worse than most people suspect, but also generally better than most people dream.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
The Jews were the money-lenders of the Middle Ages so there's a stereotype of the slightly or more than slightly dishonest business man and this stereotype covers and obscures all the facts.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self-mastery.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.
- Reinhold Niebuhr