Our dreams of bringing the whole of human history under the control of the human will are ironically refuted by the fact that no group of idealists can easily move the pattern of history toward the desired goal of peace and justice. The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.

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.

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

History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life.

Men have never been individually self-sufficient.

It is the evil in man that makes democracy necessary, and man's belief in justice that makes democracy possible.

This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor.