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About this quote

What does it mean?
Humans are naturally connected to others and instinctively consider their needs, even when it conflicts with their own.
In plain terms
We are naturally connected to others and feel their needs even when we want something else.
What can you take from it?
Human nature includes an innate concern for others.

Where it applies

  • personal relationships
  • community building
  • conflict resolution

Putting it to work

  • listening to others
  • prioritizing collective needs
  • building trust

Questions to consider

  • How do you balance self and others?
  • What drives your empathy?

Another view

Self-interest often overrides this natural impulse.

More from Reinhold Niebuhr

  1. This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, …

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  2. [R]eason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.

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  3. Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

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