Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 2, “At Tienappels’,” (1924), trans. by H.T. Lowe-Porter (1928).
“I wouldn't judge a man by the presuppositions of his life, but only by the fruits of his life.”
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.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "I wouldn't judge a man by the presuppositions of his life, but only by the fruits of his life." by Reinhold Niebuhr?
Reinhold Niebuhr 65
American protestant theologian 1892–1971Related quotes
Georges Cuvier
(1769–1832) French naturalist, zoologist and paleontologist (1769–1832)
The Animal Kingdom https://books.google.it/books?id=gKBgAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA0, trans. H. McMurtrie, London: Orr and Smith, 1834, p. 37.
William Jennings Bryan
(1860–1925) United States Secretary of State
"The Law and the Gospel" (1896)
Context: You cannot judge a man's life by the success of a moment, by the victory of an hour, or even by the results of a year. You must view his life as a whole. You must stand where you can see the man as he treads the entire path that leads from the cradle to the grave — now crossing the plain, now climbing the steeps, now passing through pleasant fields, now wending his way with difficulty between rugged rocks — tempted, tried, tested, triumphant.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
Source: Costly Grace, p. 45.
Context: Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
(1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice
1880s, In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched With Fire (1884)
Francis Schaeffer
(1912–1984) American theologian
Honoré de Balzac
(1799–1850) French writer
Pour juger un homme, au moins faut-il être dans le secret de sa pensée, de ses malheurs, de ses émotions; ne vouloir connaître de sa vie que les événements matériels, c'est faire de la chronologie, l'histoire des sots!
The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831), Part II: A Woman Without a Heart
Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984)
“It was the kiss by which all the others of his life would be judged and found wanting.”
Source: Hearts in Atlantis