Reinhold Niebuhr: Quotes about life

Reinhold Niebuhr was American protestant theologian. Explore interesting quotes on life.
Reinhold Niebuhr: 130   quotes 75   likes

“Human existence is obviously distinguished from animal life by its qualified participation in creation. Within limits it breaks the forms of nature and creates new configurations of vitality.”

Reinhold Niebuhr

The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation (1941)
Context: Human existence is obviously distinguished from animal life by its qualified participation in creation. Within limits it breaks the forms of nature and creates new configurations of vitality. Its transcendence over natural process offers it the opportunity of interfering with the established forms and unities of vitality as nature knows them.

Life , Nature , Animals

“I wouldn't judge a man by the presuppositions of his life, but only by the fruits of his life.”

Reinhold Niebuhr

The Mike Wallace Interview (1958)
Context: My personal attitude toward atheists is the same attitude that I have toward Christians, and would be governed by a very orthodox text: "By their fruits shall ye know them." I wouldn't judge a man by the presuppositions of his life, but only by the fruits of his life. And the fruits — the relevant fruits — are, I'd say, a sense of charity, a sense of proportion, a sense of justice. And whether the man is an atheist or a Christian, I would judge him by his fruits, and I have therefore many agnostic friends.

Life

“The society in which each man lives is at once the basis for, and the nemesis of, that fulness of life which each man seeks.”

Reinhold Niebuhr

Source: (1932), p.1

Life

“An irrevocable defeat of a socio-historical cause which gives meaning to the life of the individual must create a complete sense of meaninglessness unless the individual is sustained by a religion which interprets such defeats from the aspect of the eternal.”

Reinhold Niebuhr

vol. 1, p. 69
The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation (1941)

Life , Religion , Sense

“I know that the Communists are atheistic and godless, but I don't think that that's what's primarily the matter with them. What's primarily the matter with them is that they worship a false god. That's much more dangerous than when people don't believe anything; they may be confused, they may not have a sense of the meaning of life, but they're not dangerous. The fanatic is dangerous. The Communists do have a god, the Dialectic of History, which guarantees everything that they're going to do and guarantees them victory; that's why they're fanatic.”

Reinhold Niebuhr

The Mike Wallace Interview (1958)

Life , God , People , History

“The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.”

Reinhold Niebuhr

Source: (1932), pp. 27-28

Life , Motivation

“[The value and dignity of the individual] is threatened whenever it is assumed that individual desires, hopes and ideals can be fitted with frictionless harmony into the collective purposes of man. The individual is not discrete. He cannot find his fulfillment outside of the community; but he also cannot find fulfillment completely within society. In so far as he finds fulfillment within society he must abate his individual ambitions. He must 'die to self' if he would truly live. In so far as he finds fulfillment beyond every historical community he lives his life in painful tension with even the best community, sometimes achieving standards of conduct which defy the standards of the community with a resolute "we must obey God rather than man."”

Reinhold Niebuhr

The Irony of American History (1952)

Life , God , Pain , Hope

“Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.”

Reinhold Niebuhr

Source: (1932), p.26

Life

“God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other. Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.”

Reinhold Niebuhr

Full version of the original (ca. 1942)
The Serenity Prayer (c. 1942)

Courage , God , Peace , Time

“The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.”

Reinhold Niebuhr
Life , Wisdom