We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.
Reinhold NiebuhrThere was a time when I had all the answers. My real growth began when I discovered that the questions to which I had the answers were not the important questions.
Reinhold NiebuhrThat is one of the flagrant misconceptions about Catholicism in America that if a man is a Catholic he owes allegiance to what they say a foreign sovereign, or something like that.
Reinhold NiebuhrTo the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible.
Reinhold NiebuhrLiberalism makes this mistake in regard to private property and Marxism makes it in regard to socialized property... The Marxist illusion is partly derived from a romantic conception of human nature... It assumes that the socialization of property will eliminate human egotism... The development of a managerial class in Russia, combing economic with political power, is an historic refutation of the Marxist theory.
Reinhold Niebuhr