Albert Schweitzer Quotes

O heavenly Father,
protect and bless all things
that have breath: guard them
from all evil and let them sleep in peace.

To me, good health is more than just exercise and diet. Its really a point of view and a mental attitude you have about yourself.

The demands of Jesus are difficult because they require us to do something extraordinary. At the same time He asks us to regard these [acts of goodness] as something usual, ordinary.

The interior joy we feel when we have done a good deed is the nourishment the soul requires.

Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me.

Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will - his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals.

Pablo Casals is a great musician in all he does: a cellist without equal, and extraordinary conductor and composer with something to say. I have been profoundly impressed by all I have heard of his work, but he is a musician of this stature because he is also a great man.

If you own something you cannot give away, then you don't own it, it owns you.

The the question whether I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hope are optimistic.

The greatest living person in the world is some individual who at this very moment has gone in love to help another.

An idea is, in the end, always stronger than circumstances.

We cannot possibly let ourselves get frozen into regarding everyone we do not know as an absolute stranger.

Bach is thus a terminal point. Nothing comes from him; everything merely leads to him.

In case my life should end with the cannibals, I hope they will write on my tombstone, 'We have eaten Dr. Schweitzer. He was good to the end.'

By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.

Thinking about death ... produces love for life. When we are familiar with death, we accept each week, each day, as a gift. Only if we are able thus to accept life bit by bit does it become precious.

Our degeneration, when it is traced back to its origin in our view of the world really consists in the fact that true optimism has vanished unperceived from our midst.

If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.

Day by day we should weigh what we have granted to the spirit of the world against what we have denied to the spirit of Jesus, in thought and especially in deed.

If the extension of your compassion does not include all living beings, then you will be unable to find peace by yourself.

Profound love demands a deep conception and out of this develops reverence for the mystery of life. It brings us close to all beings, to the poorest and smallest as well as all others.

When people have light in themselves, it will shine out from them. Then we get to know each other as we walk together in the darkness, without needing to pass our hands over each other's faces, or to intrude into each other's hearts.

The fellowship of those who bear the mark of pain: who are the members of this Fellowship? Those who have learnt by experience what physical pain and bodily anguish mean, belong together all the world over; they are united by a secret bond.

Everyone must work to live, but the purpose of life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others. Only then have we ourselves become true human beings.

In the hearts of people today there is a deep longing for peace. When the true spirit of peace is thoroughly dominant, it becomes an inner experience with unlimited possibilities. Only when this really happens - when the spirit of peace awakens and takes possession of men's hearts, can humanity be saved from perishing.

We are compelled by the commandment of love contained in our hearts and thought, and proclaimed by Jesus, to give rein to our natural sympathy for animals. We are also compelled to help them and spare them suffering.

What does Reverence for Life say abut the relations between [humanity] and the animal world? Whenever I injury any kind of life I must be quite certain that it is necessary. I must never go beyond the unavoidable, not even in apparently insignificant things. The farmer who has mowed down a thousand flowers in his meadow in order to feed his cows must be careful on his way home not to strike the head off a single flower by the side of the road in idle amusement, for he thereby infringes on the law of life without being under the pressure of necessity.

I always think that we live, spiritually, By what others have given us in the significant hours of our life. These significant hours do not announce themselves as coming, but arrive unexpected.

If you are called upon to play a church service, it is a greater honor than if you were to play a concert on the finest organ in the world ... Thank God each time when you are privileged to sit before the organ console and assist in the worship of the Almighty.

Don't blame, forgive, All healing is self-healing

Awakening of Western thought will not be complete until that thought steps outside itself and comes to an understanding with the search for a world-view as this manifests itself in the
thought of mankind as a whole.

We ought all to make an effort to act on our first thoughts and let our unspoken gratitude find expression. Then there will be more sunshine in the world, and more power to work for what is good.

The elemental fact, present in our consciousness every moment of our existence, is: I am life that wills to live, in the midst of life that wills to live ... The essence of the humane spirit is: Preserve life, promote life, help life to achieve its highest destiny. The essence of Evil is: Destroy life, harm life, hamper the development of life

My life is my argument.

It is not enough to merely exist. It's not enough to say, 'I'm earning enough to live and support my family. I do my work well. I'm a good parent.' That's all very well. But you must do something more.

For animals that are overworked, underfed, and cruelly treated; for all wistful creatures in captivity that beat their wings against bars; for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry; for all that must be put to death ... and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words.

The greatest discovery of any generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering the attitudes of their minds.

There is so much coldness because we do not dare to be as cordial as we are
Just as the wave cannot exist for itself but must always participate in the swell of the ocean so we can never experience our lives by ourselves but must always share the experiencing of life that takes place all around us.

Each act of unfaithfulness toward our inner being is a blot on our souls. If we continue to be unfaithful, our souls are eventually torn apart and we slowly bleed to death.

I still remain convinced that truth, love, peaceableness, meekness, and kindness are the violence which can master all other violence. The world will be theirs as soon as ever a sufficient number of people with purity of heart, with strength, and with perseverance think and live out the thoughts of love and truth, of meekness and peaceableness.

There can be no Kingdom of God in the world without the Kingdom of God in our hearts.

The highest knowledge is to know that we are surrounded by mystery.

The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; but to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies.

We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.

Happiness is the only thing that multiplies when you share it.

When I look back upon my early days I am stirred by the thought of the number of people whom I have to thank for what they gave me or for what they were to me. At the same time I am haunted by an oppressive consciousness of the little gratitude I really showed them while I was young. How many of them have said farewell to life without having made clear to them what it meant to me to receive from them so much kindness or so much care! Many a time have I, with a feeling of shame, said quietly to myself over a grave the words which my mouth ought to have spoken to the departed, while he was still in the flesh.

The fundamental rights of [humanity] are, first: the right of habitation; second, the right to move freely; third, the right to the soil and subsoil, and to the use of it; fourth, the right of freedom of labor and of exchange; fifth, the right to justice; sixth, the right to live within a natural national organization; and seventh, the right to education.

No ray of sunshine is ever lost but the green that it awakens takes time to sprout, and it is not always given the sower to see the harvest.

I used to suffer particularly because the poor animals must endure so much pain and want. The sight of an old, limping horse being dragged along by one man while another man struck him with
a stick he was being driven to the Colmar slaughterhouse - haunted me for weeks.

It's supposed to be a secret, but I'll tell you anyway. We doctors do nothing. We only help. And encourage the doctor within.

The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

The most difficult thing I have ever had to do is follow the guidance I prayed for.

I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

That's my private ant. You're liable to break its legs.

Those who experiment on animals should never be able to quiet their own conscience by telling themselves that these cruelties have a worthy aim.

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

Any profound view of the world is mysticism. It has, of course, to deal with life and the world, both of which are nonrational entities.

There are only three ways to teach a child. The first is by example, the second is by example, the third is by example.

Thought is the strongest thing we have.

Ideals are thoughts. So long as they exist merely as thoughts, the power in them remains ineffective.

There slowly grew up in me an unshakable conviction that we have no right to inflict suffering and death on another living creature, unless there is some unavoidable necessity for it.

Let us rejoice in the truth, wherever we find its lamp burning.

It is not difficult to pretend that Jesus never lived. The attempt to prove it, however, invariably produces the opposite conclusion. In the Jewish literature of the first century the existence of Jesus is not attested to with any certainty, and in the Greek and Latin literature of the same period there is no evidence for it at all. Of the two passages in his Antiquities in which the Jewish writer Josephus makes incidental mention of Jesus, one was undoubtedly interpolated by Christian copyists. The first pagan witness to His existence is Tacitus, who, during the reign of Trajan in the second decade of the second century A.D., reports in his Annals (XV.44) that the founder of the "Christian" sect (which Nero accused of causing the great fire at Rome) was executed under the government of Tiberius by the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate. Since

The awareness that we are all human beings together has become lost in war and through politics.

Your soul suffers if you live superficially.

The thinking (person) must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another.

Whatever you have received more than others in health, in talents, in ability, in success, in a pleasant childhood, in harmonious conditions of home life, all this you must not take to yourself as a matter of course. You must pay a price for it. You must render in return an unusually great sacrifice of your life for other life.

Dare to face the situation...Man has become a superman... But the superman with the superhuman power has not risen to the level of superhuman reason. To the degree which his power grows he becomes more and more a poor man... It must shake up our conscience that we become all the more inhuman the more we grow into superhuman.

The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colours and textures that come alive in others.

Affirmation of the world, which means affirmation of the will-to-live that manifests itself around me, is only possible if I devote myself to other life.

I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.

Not only is example the best way to teach, it is the only way.

To affirm life is to deepen, to make more inward, and to exalt the will-to-life. At the same time the man who has become a thinking being feels a compulsion to give every will-to-live the same reverence for life that he gives to his own. He experiences that other life as his own. He accepts as being good: to preserve life, to raise to its highest value life which is capable of development; and as being evil: to destroy life, to injure life, to repress life which is capable of development. This is the absolute, fundamental principle of the moral, and it is a necessity of thought.

If people would wake that feeling of compassion within themselves, the suffering of others would affect them more often, and the desire to alleviate it, if not prevent it, would grow inside them. Then, the active involvement in the suffering of other beings would become the supreme life principle in everyday reasoning, feeling and the activity of individuals.

Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being.

Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives.

The ethic of Reverence for Life is the ethic of Love widened into universality.

What has been presented as Christianity during these nineteen centuries is only a beginning, full of mistakes, not full blown Christianity springing from the spirit of Jesus.

Passes he stands for a moment close to us, as though illumined by a flash of lightning. Then we see him as he really is. After

The only way out of today's misery is for people to become worthy of each other's trust.

Do something for somebody everyday for which you do not get paid.

We cannot abdicate our conscience to an organization, nor to a government.

Every patient carries her or his own doctor inside.

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

Every person I have known who has been truly happy has learned how to serve others.

What really matters is that we should all of us realize that we are guilty of inhumanity. The horror of this realization should shakes us out of our lethargy so that we can direct our hopes and our intentions to the coming of an era in which war will have no place.

The Bhagavad-Gita has a profound influence on the spirit of mankind by its devotion to God which is manifested by actions.

We must all die. But that I can save him from days of torture, that is what I feel as my great and ever new privilege. Pain is a more terrible lord of mankind than even death itself.

Knowing all truth is less than doing a little bit of good.

Reverence for life ... does not allow the scholar to live for his science alone, even if he is very useful ... the artist to exist only for his art, even if he gives inspiration to many ... It refuses to let the business man imagine that he fulfills all legitimate demands in the course of his business activities. It demands from all that they should sacrifice a portion of their own lives for others.

I am certain and have always stressed that the destination of mankind is to become more and more humane. The ideal of humanity has to be revived.

We must never allow the voice of humanity within us to be silenced. It is humanity's sympathy with all creatures that first makes us truly human.

Wherever you turn, you can find someone who needs you. Even if it is a little thing, do something for which there is no pay but the privilege of doing it. Remember, you don't live in a world all of your own.

There is nothing more negative than the result of the critical study of the life of Jesus. The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give his work its final consecration, never had any existence. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical garb.

Aim for service and success will follow!

Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.

We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace.

Arguing from facts never wins a definitive victory against skillfully presented opinion.

I therefore used the last ten minutes of our classes to recite with them words from the Bible and verses from hymns, so that they would know them and the words would stay with them throughout their lives. The aim of my teaching was to bring to their hearts and thoughts the great truths of the Gospels so religion would have meaning in their lives and give them the strength to resist the irreligious forces that might assail them. I also tried to awaken in them a love for the Church, and a desire for that hour of spiritual peace to be found in the Sunday service. I taught them to respect traditional doctrines, but at the same time to hold fast to the saying of Paul that where the spirit of Christ is, there is freedom.