Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes

Change what cannot be accepted and accept what cannot be changed.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Evil is not to be traced back to the individual but to the collective behavior of humanity.

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.

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

The final test of religious faith is whether it will enable men to endure insecurity without complacency or despair, whether it can so interpret the ancient verities that they will not become mere escape hatches from responsibilities but instruments of insights into what civilization means.

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

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

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

And the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.

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

Commemoration of Pandita Mary Ramabai, Translator of the Scriptures, 1922 Ultimate confidence in the goodness of life cannot rest upon confidence in the goodness of man. If that is where it rests, it is an optimism which will suffer ultimate disillusionment. Romanticism will be transmuted into cynicism, as it has always been in the world's history. The faith of a Christian is something quite different from this optimism. It is trust in God, in a good God who created a good world, though the world is not now good; in a good God, powerful and good enough finally to destroy the evil that men do and redeem them of their sins. This kind of faith is not optimism. It does not, in fact, arise until optimism breaks down and men cease to trust in themselves that they are righteous.

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.

All men who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that can be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish one from the other.

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