1
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.Reinhold Niebuhr
2
Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.Reinhold Niebuhr
3
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.Reinhold Niebuhr
4
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.Reinhold Niebuhr
5
The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.Reinhold Niebuhr
6
The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.Reinhold Niebuhr
7
Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.Reinhold Niebuhr
8
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.Reinhold Niebuhr
9
I wonder if anyone who needs a snappy song service can really appreciate the meaning of the cross.Reinhold Niebuhr
10
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.Reinhold Niebuhr
11
Forgiveness is the final form of love.Reinhold Niebuhr
12
Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.Reinhold Niebuhr
13
Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.Reinhold Niebuhr
14
Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith; and laughter is the beginning of prayer … Laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humour is fulfilled by faith.Reinhold Niebuhr
15
Humor is a prelude to faith, and laughter is the beginning of prayer.Reinhold Niebuhr
16
It is my strong conviction that a realist conception of human nature should be made a servant of an ethic of progressive justice and should not be made into a bastion of conservatism, particularly a conservatism which defends unjust privileges.Reinhold Niebuhr
17
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.Reinhold Niebuhr
18
O God give us serenity to accept what cannot be changed courage to change what should be changed and wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.Reinhold Niebuhr
19
I'm not afraid of too many things and I got that invincible kind of attitude from my father.Reinhold Niebuhr
20
Faith is the final triumph over incongruity the final assertion of the meaningfulness of existence.Reinhold Niebuhr
21
Man's capacity for evil makes democracy necessary and man's capacity for good makes democracy possible.Reinhold Niebuhr
22
The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self-mastery.Reinhold Niebuhr
23
The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.Reinhold Niebuhr
24
If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.Reinhold Niebuhr
25
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime therefore we must be saved by hope.Reinhold Niebuhr
26
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.Reinhold Niebuhr
27
The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self mastery.Reinhold Niebuhr
28
Our age knows nothing but reaction, and leaps from one extreme to another.Reinhold Niebuhr
29
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
30
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history therefore we must be saved by faith.Reinhold Niebuhr
31
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.Reinhold Niebuhr
32
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.Reinhold Niebuhr
33
The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.Reinhold Niebuhr
34
I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.Reinhold Niebuhr
35
If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.Reinhold Niebuhr
36
Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.Reinhold Niebuhr
37
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history therefore we must be saved by faith.Reinhold Niebuhr
38
The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.Reinhold Niebuhr
39
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.Reinhold Niebuhr