Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
Despotism, which we regard with abhorrence, is rather too plausible in decaying feudal, agrarian, pastoral societies. That's why we must expect to have many a defeat before we'll have an ultimate victory in this contest with Communism.
Niebuhr, Reinhold. Interview by Mike Wallace. The Mike Wallace Interview, American Broadcasting Company, 27 Apr. 1958.
This quotation is inscribed on the FDR Memorial in Washington DC.
Fortunately for Turkey and the world, a great Turkish leader, Ataturk, rose up and radically reformed the nation and transformed it to a European style, secular democracy which became the most successful Muslim nation in the world but was under pressure by Ismalists to revert and have more religious control. Ataturk ended the Turkey that TR and others were criticizing.
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of America's leading public intellectuals for several decades of the 20th century and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. A public theologian, he wrote and spoke frequently about the intersection of religion, politics, and public policy, with his most influential books including Moral Man and Immoral Society and The Nature and Destiny of Man. The latter is ranked number 18 of the top 100 non-fiction books of the twentieth century by Modern Library. Andrew Bacevich labelled Niebuhr's book The Irony of American History "the most important book ever written on U.S. foreign policy." The historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. described Niebuhr as "the most influential American theologian of the 20th century" and Time posthumously called Niebuhr "the greatest Protestant theologian in America since Jonathan Edwards."
