Reinhold Niebuhr

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

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