poets save us by love.
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime;therefore, we must be saved by hope.
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense
in any immediate context of history;
therefore, we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
therefore we are saved by love.
-Reinhold Niebuhr
(Excerpt from The Irony of American History, cited in Leading from Within, ed. by S. M. Intrator and M. Scribner)