54 quotes
Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness (1944)
Man is endowed by nature with organic relations to his fellow men; and natural impulse prompts him to consider the needs of others even when they compete with his own.
Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
The Serenity Prayer (1942)
All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
The society in which each man lives is at once the basis for, and the nemesis of, that fulness of life which each man seeks.
Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
Human beings are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses.
Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
Sometimes they are as anxious to offer moral justifications for the brutalities from which they suffer as for those which they commit.
Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
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.
The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation (1941)
There is no level of moral achievement upon which man can have or actually has an easy conscience.
The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation (1941)
The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.
The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power.
Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
Insofar as the sense of humour is a recognition of incongruity, it is more profound than any philosophy which seeks to devour incongruity in reason.
Humour and Faith (1945)
Man does not know himself truly except as he knows himself confronted by God. Only in that confrontation does he become aware of his full stature and freedom and of the evil in him.
The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation (1941)
Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.
Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
The naïve faith of the proletarian is the faith of the man of action. Rationality belongs to the cool observers.
Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself.
Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
The vision of a just society is an impossible one, which can be approximated only by those who do not regard it as impossible.
Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (1932)
Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life. Reason may extend and stabilise, but it does not create, the capacity to affirm other life than his own.
Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
As individuals, men believe they ought to love and serve each other and establish justice between each other. As racial, economic and national groups they take for themselves, whatever their power can command.
Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.
The Irony of American History (1952)