QuoteProject
Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.
Reinhold Niebuhr
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote reflects the ongoing struggle between faith and reason, suggesting that they are interdependent and influence each other.

Reinhold Niebuhr's quote encapsulates the complex relationship between faith and reason, illustrating how these two elements interact within the human experience. It posits that faith can both nourish reason and be undermined by it, while rational thought may provide clarity to one's beliefs but could also challenge and weaken them. This continuous battle informs our understanding of the world and ourselves, emphasizing the delicate balance that one must maintain between belief and inquiry.

Themes

FaithReasonBattlePhilosophyBelief

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a discussion about the role of faith in decision-making processes.

More from Reinhold Niebuhr

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
The 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

to have faith is precisely to lose one's mind so as to win God.
Soren KierkegaardRead
Our memory fragments don't have any coherence until they're imagined in words. Time is a property of language, of syntax, and tense.
Siri HustvedtRead
A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes; the leaves falling like our years, the flowers fading like our hours, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives--all bear secret relations to our destinies.
Franois-Ren De ChateaubriandRead
Let us face a pluralistic world in which there are no universal churches, no single remedy for all diseases, no one way to teach or write or sing, no magic diet, no world poets, and no chosen races, but only the wretched and wonderfully diversified human race.
Jacques BarzunRead
We must reason in natural philosophy not from what we hope, or even expect, but from what we perceive.
Humphry DavyRead
I saw firsthand what focusing on the wrong things, elevating the wrong people can do - the collateral damage that can be created by allowing somebody to live their lives without accountability.
Mary L. TrumpRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.