Reinhold Niebuhr 's quote does put things in perspective, we are a small snapshot in a much larger picture, we need to do our best with hope, faith and love to steer the ship in the proper direction. The quote also ties into Palmer 's idea that we shouldn’t be judging ours with effectiveness as the ultimate measure. It’s a little hard not to see the irony in the statement of not using effectiveness as our measure, especially after just finishing a business course which put emphasis on such measures. However, Niebuhr 's quote really does resonate the importance of our internal values versus our external success. Niebuhr’s quote also puts our so called “successes” into perspective, similar to a TED talk I recently watched by David Brooks,