4 Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes on Nature

Reinhold Niebuhr quotes on nature

7. Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.

11. Human beings are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses.

14. Human existence is obviously distinguished from animal life by its qualified participation in creation. Within limits it breaks the forms of nature and creates new configurations of vitality. Its transcendence over natural process offers it the opportunity of interfering with the established forms and unities of vitality as nature knows them.

15. The modern man is . . . certain about his essential virtue . . . [and since] he does not see that he has a freedom of spirit which transcends both nature and reason . . . [he] is unable to understand the real pathos of his defiance of nature's and reason's laws. He always imagines himself betrayed into this defiance either by some accidental corruption in his past history or by some sloth of reason. Hence he hopes for redemption, either through a program of social reorganization or by some scheme of education.