Albert Schweitzer Quotes (123 Quotes)

In modern European thought a tragedy is occurring in that the original bonds uniting the affirmative attitude towards the world with ethics are, by a slow but irresistible process, loosening and finally parting. - Out of my life and Thought.

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

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace. - The Philosophy of Civilization.

The time will come when public opinion will no longer tolerate amusements based on the mistreatment and killing of animals. The time will come, but when When will we reach the point that hunting, the pleasure in killing animals for sport, will be regarded as a mental aberration.

As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious.

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.

Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.

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

The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.

Any religion or philosophy which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion or philosophy.

Only those who respect the personality of others can be of real use to them

I am life that with to live in the midst of other life that wills to live.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

I wanted to be a doctor that I might be able to work without having to talk because for years I had been giving myself out in words.

The African is my brother but he is my younger brother by several centuries.

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.

It is man's sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man.

Ethics is the activity of man directed to secure the inner perfection of his own personality.

The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.

Late upon the third day, at the very moment when, at sunset ... there flashed upon my mind, unforseen and unsought, the phrase 'Reverence for Life'.

Serious illness doesn't bother me for long because I am too inhospitable a host.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

Truth has not special time of its own. Its hour is now always and, indeed then most truly, when it seems unsuitable to actual circumstances.

Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.

Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.Civilization and Ethics, 1949

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.

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.

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

Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things, man will not find peace.

Happiness That's nothing more than health and a poor memory.

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

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.

There are no heroes of action only heroes of renunciation and suffering - Out of My Life and Thoughts.

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.

Truth has no time of its own. Its hour is now -- always, and indeed then most truly when it seems most unsuitable to actual circumstances.

Revenge... is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion.

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.

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.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

This new form of activity medicine I could not represent to myself as talking about the religion of love, but only as an actual putting it into practice.

You ask me for a motto. Here it is SERVICE.

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.

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

The highest proof of the spirit is love. Love the eternal thing which can already on earth possess as it really is.

Let me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and further life it is bad to damage and destroy life.

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.