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

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

— Reinhold Niebuhr

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

— Reinhold Niebuhr

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

— 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

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

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

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

— Reinhold Niebuhr

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

— Reinhold Niebuhr

There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.

— Reinhold Niebuhr

A wise architect observed that you could break the laws of architectural art provided you had mastered them first. That would apply to religion as well as to art. Ignorance of the past does not guarantee freedom from its imperfections.

— Reinhold Niebuhr

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

— Reinhold Niebuhr

God give me the serenity to accept things which cannot be changed;Give me courage to change things which must be changed;And the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.

— Reinhold Niebuhr