A Quote by Reinhold Niebuhr

Human Beings are just good enough to make democracy possible...just bad enough to make it neccessary.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Quote Topics

Bad Beings Democracy Enough Good Good Enough Human Human Being Human Beings Just Make Possible

Quote Author

Reinhold Niebuhr
American - Theologian
June 21, 1892 - June 1, 1971

Leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes, humble enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving.

Jesse Jackson

As beavers build dams and bees build hives, human beings have spears. Or take the high intelligence of human beings, the ability to make plans, to transmit information - that was also there before, but that, together with the tools, was not enough to make man special.

Yuval Noah Harari

Nine requisites for contented living: Health enough to make work a pleasure. Wealth enough to support your needs. Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor. Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others. Faith enough to make real the things of God. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This is what I say: I've got good news and bad news. The good news is, you don't have to worry, you can't change the past. The bad news is, you don't have to worry, no matter how hard you try, you can't change the past. The universe just doesn't put up with that. We aren't important enough. No one is. Even in our own lives. We're not strong enough, willful enough, skilled enough in chronodiegetic manipulation to be able to just accidentally change the entire course of anything, even ourselves.

Charles Yu

The crucial task of old age is balance: keeping just well enough, just brave enough, just gay and interested and starkly honest enough to remain a sentient human being.

Florida Scott-Maxwell

Like letting spiders live because they eat mosquitoes, Clary thought. "So they're good enough to let live, good enough to make your food for you, good enough to flirt with-but not really good enough? I mean, not as good as people.

Cassandra Clare

They say love dies between two people. That’s wrong. It doesn’t die. It just leaves you, goes away, if you aren’t good enough, worthy enough. It doesn’t die; you’re the the one that dies. It’s like the ocean: if you’re no good, if you begin to make a bad smell in it, it just spews you up somewhere to die. You die anyway, but I had rather drown in the ocean than be urped up onto a strip of dead beach and be dried away by the sun into a little foul smear with no name to it, just this was for an epitaph

William Faulkner

Over the last twenty years, we've changed the world just enough to make it radically different, but not enough to make it work.

Anna Quindlen

Be daring enough to be different, humble enough to make mistakes, wild enough to be burnt in the fire of love, real enough to make others see how phony you are.

Brennan Manning

I just keep following the good writing. I'm not good enough to make bad writing look good. Some people can, and I admire them for it, but I cannot. I will go down with the ship.

Paul Sparks

'Simplifying' the tax code is a priority mainly for people who make enough money to want to avoid paying taxes, and who make their money by means unorthodox enough to make avoiding taxes possible and desirable.

Alex Pareene

I was never good at hide and seek because I'd always make enough noise so my friends would be sure to find me. I don't have anyone to play those games with any more, but now and then I make enough noise just in case someone is still looking and hasn't found me yet.

Brian Andreas

It is really just as bad technique to make a measurement more accurately than is necessary as it is to make it not accurately enough.

Arthur David Ritchie

I believe in the goodness of fellow human beings. We have a true desire for greatness and genuine good intention to be helpful to others. That's enough. Change is possible.