3 Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes on Politics

Reinhold Niebuhr quotes on politics

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

21. We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about a particular degree of interest and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimatized.

23. Our dreams of a pure virtue are dissolved in a situation in which it is possible to exercise the virtue of responsibility toward a community of nations only by courting the prospective guilt of the atomic bomb.