Man is always worse than most people suspect, but also generally better than most people dream. Reinhold Niebuhr More Quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr More Quotes From Reinhold Niebuhr We misjudge anybody who's different from us and the Jews diverge from our type, ethnically and religiously. That's their chief offense, but there are particular causes. Reinhold Niebuhr typecausesdifferent I've long ago felt, I have many Jewish friends and I very I think creative Jewish friends, and I've long felt that the average Christian didn't realize the tremendous capacity for civic righteousness among our Jewish people. Reinhold Niebuhr christianaveragethinking My personal attitude toward atheists is the same attitude that I have toward Christians, and would be governed by a very orthodox text: "By their fruits shall ye know them." Reinhold Niebuhr atheistchristianattitude The Jews were the money-lenders of the Middle Ages so there's a stereotype of the slightly or more than slightly dishonest business man and this stereotype covers and obscures all the facts. Reinhold Niebuhr agemenfacts There has been a religious revival because - let me put it like this, the people that weren't traditionally religious, conventionally religious, had a religion of their own in my youth. These were liberals who believed in the idea of progress or they were Marxists. Both of these secular religions have broken down. Reinhold Niebuhr brokenreligiousideas Now when the historic religions give trivial answers to these very tragic questions of our day, when an evangelist says, for instance, we mustn't hope for a summit meeting, we must hope in Christ without spelling out what this could mean in our particular nuclear age. This is the irrelevant answer, when another Evangelist says if America doesn't stop being selfish, it will be doomed. This is also a childish answer because nations are selfish and the question about America isn't whether we will be selfish or unselfish, but will we be sufficiently imaginative to pass the Reciprocal Trade Acts. Reinhold Niebuhr selfishmeanamerica In the Old Testament, the God of the Prophets never was completely on Israel's side. There was a primitive national religion, but it was always a transcendent God who had judgment first in the House of God. This is the true religion. It has a sense of a transcendent majesty and a transcendent meaning so that that puts myself and the foe under the same judgment. Reinhold Niebuhr majestyisraelhouse I know that the Communists are atheistic and godless, but I don't think that that's what's primarily the matter with them. What's primarily the matter with them is that they worship a false god. That's much more dangerous than when people don't believe anything; they may be confused, they may not have a sense of the meaning of life, but they're not dangerous. Reinhold Niebuhr confusedbelievethinking In the 17th and 18th centuries there was a kind of Protestantism that said, "If you could only get rid of the Bishop, then you'd be a true Christian". Reinhold Niebuhr bishopskindchristian The fanatic is dangerous. Reinhold Niebuhr dangerousfanatics That is one of the flagrant misconceptions about Catholicism in America that if a man is a Catholic he owes allegiance to what they say a foreign sovereign, or something like that. Reinhold Niebuhr catholicmenamerica Not only in America but in Germany, in France since the war, in Germany after the First World War, the Germany of Adenauer, these are the creative relationships of Catholicism to a free society that the average American doesn't fully appreciate. Reinhold Niebuhr averagewaramerica Now the ordinary Protestant, Jew or Secularist has a stereotype about Catholicism. It consists of Spanish Catholicism, Latin-American Catholicism and, let us say, a Catholicism of O'Connor's "Great Hurrah." Now there are types of Catholicism like that but this doesn't - this doesn't do justice to the genuine relation that Catholicism has had to Democratic Society. Reinhold Niebuhr latinordinaryjustice You can't say that religion or irreligion will give us a particular answer to the nuclear dilemma. Reinhold Niebuhr nuclearanswersgiving Religion mustn't interfere with the state - so one of the basic Democratic principles as we know it in America is the separation of church and state. Reinhold Niebuhr churchprinciplesamerica There must be a realm of truth beyond political competence, that's why there must be a separation of churches, but if religion is bad and a bad religion is one that gives an ultimate sanctity to some particular cause. Reinhold Niebuhr politicalchurchgiving No nation can say, 'We will capitulate to tyranny rather than accept a speculative fate - to accept an absolute fate in alternative to a speculative one' - no nation can do that. Reinhold Niebuhr fatealternativesaccepting Politics deals with a common-sense approach to the imponderables of history, that I think are obscured by a certain kind of rationalism. Reinhold Niebuhr common-sensekindthinking Ultimately freedom is necessary for a society, because every despotic society - for instance, the Russian society - lives on the basis of a rather implausible dogma - the Marxist dogma of world redemption through Communism. Reinhold Niebuhr redemptiondogmaworld I think that when we believe that something is right, there's a serious ambivalence about it. On one hand, you say, because it's right, it must be victorious. On the other hand, you say, it's right whether it's victorious or not. And this is what I believe about a free society. Reinhold Niebuhr believehandsthinking
