Reinhold Niebuhr

I thus free myself from the illness of ego-clinging.

The only way for a woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be good to some man that can afford to be good to her.

As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.

Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before.

Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.

Tragedy was foresworn, in ritual denial of the ripe knowledge that we are drawing away from one another, that we share only one thing, share the fear of belonging to another, or to others, or to God; love or money, tender equated in advertising and the world, where only money is currency, and under dead trees and brittle ornaments prehensile hands exchange forgeries of what the heart dare not surrender.

Glances of true beauty can be seen in the faces of those who live in true meekness.

We sing in a church, why can we not dance there?

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday.

An awareness of our past is essential to the establishment of our personality and our identity as Africans.