Reinhold Niebuhr

“The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.”

“There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.”

“The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.”

“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.”

“I wonder if anyone who needs a snappy song service can really appreciate the meaning of the cross.”

“The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self mastery.”

“Rationality belongs to the cool observer, but because of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not reason, but faith, and the naive faith requires necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications which are provided by the myth-maker to keep ordinary person on course.”

“All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its intentions.”

“Evil is not to be traced back to the individual but to the collective behavior of humanity.”

“The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.”

“Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.”

“If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.”

“If we can find God only as he is revealed in nature we have no moral God.”

“Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.”

“Democracies are indeed slow to make war, but once embarked upon a martial venture are equally slow to make peace and reluctant to make a tolerable, rather than a vindictive, peace.”

“Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.”

“Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.”

“Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.”

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.”

“Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.”