Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes

Faith is the final triumph over incongruity the final assertion of the meaningfulness of existence.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Man's capacity for evil makes democracy necessary and man's capacity for good makes democracy possible.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.

Forgiveness is the final form of love.

Humor is a prelude to faith, and laughter is the beginning of prayer.

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

I'm not afraid of too many things and I got that invincible kind of attitude from my father.

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