Quotes by Reinhold Niebuhr

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

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

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

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

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.

There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war.

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.

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.

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