Dr Albert Schweitzer Quotes

If acts of service do not come naturally for you, it is still a love language worth acquiring. It is a way of expressing a sense of responsibility for the well-being of others. Albert Schweitzer said repeatedly " As long as there is a man in the world who is hungry, sick, lonely or living in fear, he is my responsibility." Helping others is universally accepted as an expression of love. ~ Gary Chapman

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight ... the truly wise person is colorblind. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Who can describe the injustice and the cruelties that in the course of centuries the peoples of color of the world have suffered at the hands of Europeans? ... We and our civilization are burdened, really, with a great debt. We are not free to confer benefits on these men, or not, as we please; it is our duty. Anything we give them is not benevolence but atonement. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no sunday, it becomes an orphan. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Bach is played altogether too fast. Music that presupposes a visual comprehension of lines of sound advancing side by side becomes chaos for the listener; high speed makes comprehension impossible. Yet ~ Albert Schweitzer

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

I have given up the ambition to be a great scholar. I want to be more- simply a human ... We are not true humans, but beings who live by a civilization inherited from the past, that keeps us hostage, that confines us. No freedom of movement. Nothing. Everything in us is killed by our calculations for our future, by our social position and cast. You see, I am not happy-yet I am happy. I suffer, but that is part of life. I live, I don't care about my existence, and that is the beginning of wisdom. ~ Albert Schweitzer

The only thing of importance, when we depart, will be the traces of love we have left behind. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Reverence for life, veneratio vitae, is the most direct and at the same time the profoundest achievement of my will-to-live. ~ Albert Schweitzer

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

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Open your eyes and look for some man, or some work for the sake of men, which needs a little time, a little friendship, a little sympathy, a little sociability, a little human toil ... It is needed in every nook and corner. Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Every patient carries her or his own doctor inside. ~ Albert Schweitzer

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

The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives. -Albert Schweitzer ~ Albert Schweitzer

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Help me to fling my life like a flaming firebrand into the gathering darkness of the world. ~ Albert Schweitzer

It is not enough merely to exist. It's not enough to say, "I'm earning enough to support my family. I do my work well. I'm a good father, husband, churchgoer." That's all very well. But you must do something more. Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. Even if it's a little thing, do something for those who need help, something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. For remember, you don't live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Nature compels us to recognize the fact of mutual dependence, each life necessarily helping the other lives who are linked to it. In the very fibers of our being, we bear within ourselves the fact of the solidarity of life. ~ Albert Schweitzer

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character. ~ Albert Schweitzer

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

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf. ~ Albert Schweitzer

What we call love is in its essence reverence for life. ~ Albert Schweitzer

The gratitude that we encounter helps us believe in the goodness of the world, and strengthens us thereby to do what's good. ~ Albert Schweitzer

In the past we have tried to make a distinction between animals which we acknowledge have some value and other which, having none, can be liquidated when we wish. This standard must be abandoned. Everything that lives has value simply as a living thing, as one of the manifestations of the mystery that is life. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Dr. Johnson's enticing images and language give us a fundamentally sound and memorable way of managing change." - Albert J. Simone, President ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY "Spencer Johnson's unique insights and storytelling make this a rare book that can be read and understood quickly by everyone who wants to do well in these changing times." - Randy Harris, Former Vice-Chairman MERRILL LYNCH INTERNATIONAL "This book is a simple, understandable road map for us to use as we deal with our own individual circumstances around change." - Michael Morley, Senior Vice President EASTMAN KODAK "This wonderful book is an asset to any person or group that applies its lessons." - John A. Lopiano, Senior V.P. XEROX CORPORATION ~ Spencer Johnson

About six years ago, Life magazine ran an article on the historicity of Jesus and I was floored to find that they conceded the only evidence we have for his existence is in the Gospels. But don't take Life's word for it. In his book The Quest of the Historical Jesus, the most definitive study that's ever been done on the subject, Albert Schweitzer admitted that there isn't a shred of conclusive proof that Christ ever lived, let alone was the son of God. He concludes that one must therefore accept both on faith. ~ Madalyn Murray O'Hair

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Our age is bent on trying to make the barren tree of skepticism fruitful by tying the fruits of truth on its branches. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Don't blame, forgive, All healing is self-healing ~ Albert Schweitzer

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. ~ Albert Schweitzer

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Every patient carries his or her own doctor inside. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Within every patient there resides a doctor, and we as physicians are at our best when we we put our patients in touch with the doctor inside themselves. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer, a century or more ago, used another strong image. Jesus, he said, was like a man convinced the wheel of history was going to turn in the opposite direction. He waited for this to happen, but it didn't. Then he threw himself upon the wheel, and it crushed him - but it did indeed start to turn in the other direction. ~ N. T. Wright

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 ~ Albert Schweitzer

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Where principles and heart stand in conflict with each other, let us make the law of the spirit free from the law of principles. ~ Albert Schweitzer

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer

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. ~ Albert Schweitzer