If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.
It is my strong conviction that a realist conception of human nature should be made a servant of an ethic of progressive justice and should not be made into a bastion of conservatism, particularly a conservatism which defends unjust privileges.
Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.
The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.
The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.
Evil is not to be traced back to the individual but to the collective behavior of humanity.
Religion, declares the modern man, is consciousness of our highest social values. Nothing could be further from the truth. True religion is a profound uneasiness about our highest social values.
The prophet himself stands under the judgment which he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet.
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
All men are naturally included to obscure the morally ambiguous element in their political cause by investing it with religious sanctity.
Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.
Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.
We don’t properly discriminate. We never discriminate properly when we’re dealing with another group and one of the big problems about religion is that religious people don’t know that they are probably as flagrant in these misjudgments as irreligious people.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.
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.
The significance of the law of love is precisely that it is not just another law, but a law which transcends all law.
The chief source of man’s inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.
One of the most pathetic aspects of human history is that every civilization expresses itself most pretentiously, compounds its partial and universal values most convincingly, and claims immortality for its finite existence at the very moment when the decay which leads to death has already begun.
Family life is too intimate to be preserved by the spirit of justice. It can be sustained by a spirit of love which goes beyond justice.
What is so funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously. Laughter is the same and healthy response to the innocent foibles of men; and even to some which are not innocent.