Reinhold Niebuhr Democracy Quotations

Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.

Democracies are indeed slow to make war, but once embarked upon a martial venture are equally slow to make peace and reluctant to make a tolerable, rather than a vindictive, peace.

A republic properly understood is a sovereignty of justice, in contradistinction to a sovereignty of will.

For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.

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

We have, on the whole, more liberty and less equality than Russia has. Russia has less liberty and more equality. Whether democracy should be defined primarily in terms of liberty or equality is a source of unending debate.