Civilization depends upon the vigorous pursuit of the highest values by people who are intelligent enough to know that their values are qualified by their interests and corrupted by their prejudices.
Reinhold NiebuhrThe churches that are most obviously democratic are most obviously given to race prejudice. I mean the churches that have absolute congregational control.
Reinhold NiebuhrOriginal sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.
Reinhold NiebuhrThe whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.
Reinhold NiebuhrNow the ordinary Protestant, Jew or Secularist has a stereotype about Catholicism. It consists of Spanish Catholicism, Latin-American Catholicism and, let us say, a Catholicism of O'Connor's "Great Hurrah." Now there are types of Catholicism like that but this doesn't - this doesn't do justice to the genuine relation that Catholicism has had to Democratic Society.
Reinhold Niebuhr