Quotes from Reinhold Niebuhr
Every experience proves that the real problem of our existence lies in the fact that we ought to love one another, but do not.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
The significance of the law of love is precisely that it is not just another law, but a law which transcends all law.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its intentions.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can be sustained by a spirit of love which goes beyond justice.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
It's always wise to seek the truth in our opponents' error, and the error in our own truth.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
I cannot worship the abstractions of virtue: she only charms me when she addresses herself to my heart, speaks through the love from which she springs.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
That is the truth about man - that he has a curious kind of dignity, but also a curious kind of misery, and that these forms of agnosticism don't understand.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
The pretensions of final truth are always partlyan effort to obscure a darkly felt consciousness of the limits of human knowledge.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
Man's capacity for evil makes democracy necessary and man's capacity for good makes democracy possible.
- Reinhold Niebuhr