Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.
Reinhold NiebuhrRead
Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life's ethical problems.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nationalism allows individuals to avoid facing complex ethical dilemmas by providing a simplified identity.
Reinhold Niebuhr's quote suggests that nationalism offers a convenient escape for modern individuals from the challenging moral questions of life. By aligning themselves with national identity, people may find comfort and clarity at the expense of deeper ethical engagement and responsibility.
Themes
NationalismEthicsIdentityEscapeMorality
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about national policies, one might use this quote to discuss how nationalism can oversimplify complex ethical issues.
More from Reinhold Niebuhr
All quotes βThe tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.
Reinhold NiebuhrRead
The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self mastery.
Reinhold NiebuhrRead
All you earnest young men out to save the world. . . please, have a laugh.
Reinhold NiebuhrRead
Forgiveness is the final form of love.
Reinhold NiebuhrRead
God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed.
Reinhold NiebuhrRead
Similar quotes
Maybe I don't need a relationship after all, she thought. Maybe thinking about these conversations was just as good as having them. She could sit in her Honda in the dark and experience whatever kind of life she wanted. Sometimes you think, Hey, maybe there's something else out there. But there really isn't. This is what being alive feels like, you know? The place doesn't matter. You just live.
Chuck KlostermanRead
If every man took only what was sufficient for his needs, leaving the rest to those in want, there would be no rich and no poor.
Saint BasilRead
The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.
Georg C. LichtenbergRead
We all have appointments with the past.
W. G. SebaldRead
The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.
Ruth Bader GinsburgRead
Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
Edmund BurkeRead