Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes

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

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

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

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

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

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

Forgiveness is the final form of love.

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

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

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

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

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

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

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

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

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

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

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

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

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

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

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

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

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

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

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

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

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

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

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

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

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

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

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

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

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

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

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

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

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

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

~ Reinhold Niebuhr