Reinhold Niebuhr Men Quotations

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

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.

We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.

Man is his own most vexing problem.

The essence of man is his freedom. Sin is committed in that freedom. Sin can therefore not be attributed to a defect in his essence. It can only be understood as a self-contradiction, made possible by the fact of his freedom but not following necessarily from it.

This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor.

Man is always worse than most people suspect, but also generally better than most people dream.

Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.

Men have never been individually self-sufficient.

For man as an historical creature has desires of indeterminate dimensions.

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

The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.

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.

There are evidently limits to the achievements of science; and there are irresolvable contradictions both between prosperity and virtue, and between happiness and ``the good life,'' which had not been anticipated in our philosophy.

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 society in which each man lives is at once the basis for, and the nemesis of, that fulness of life which each man seeks.

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

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

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

What is so funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously. Laughter is the same and healthy response to the innocent foibles of men; and even to some which are not innocent.

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

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.

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

Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.

The prophet himself stands under the judgment which he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet.

One of the most pathetic aspects of human history is that every civilization expresses itself most pretentiously, compounds its partial and universal values most convincingly, and claims immortality for its finite existence at the very moment when the decay which leads to death has already begun.

It is the evil in man that makes democracy necessary, and man's belief in justice that makes democracy possible.

Religion, declares the modern man, is consciousness of our highest social values. Nothing could be further from the truth. True religion is a profound uneasiness about our highest social values.

All men are naturally included to obscure the morally ambiguous element in their political cause by investing it with religious sanctity.

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

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

[There is] an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups.

All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.