183 Quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

Aim for the stars and maybe you’ll reach the sky.

Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

Since the survival impulse in nature is transmuted into two different and contradictory spiritualized forms, which we may briefly designate as the will-to-live-truly and the will-to-power, man is at variance with himself. The power of the second impulse places him more fundamentally in conflict with his fellowman than democratic liberalism realizes.

God grant me the serenityto accept the things I cannot change;courage to change the things I can;and wisdom to know the difference.Living one day at a time;enjoying one moment at a time;accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;taking, as He did, this sinful worldas it is, not as I would have it;trusting that He will make all things rightif I surrender to His Will;that I may be reasonably happy in this lifeand supremely happy with Himforever in the next.Amen.

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 chief source of man’s inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.

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.

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.

Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life’s ethical problems.