“Happiness? That’s nothing more than health and a poor memory.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“One thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way but must accept his lot calmly even if they roll a few more upon it.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“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.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“Man can no longer live for himself alone. We must realize that all life is valuable and that we are united to all life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship with the universe.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“The tragedy in a man’s life is what dies inside of him while he lives.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“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.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“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.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“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.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“The interior joy we feel when we have done a good deed is the nourishment the soul requires.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“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.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“I look back upon my youth and realize how so many people gave me help, understanding, courage – very important things to me – and they never knew it. They entered into my life and became powers within me. All of us live spiritually by what others have given us, often unwittingly, in the significant hours of our life. At the time these significant hours may not even be perceived. We may not recognize them until years later when we look back, as one remembers some long-ago music or a boyhood landscape. We all owe to others much of the gentleness and wisdom that we have made our own; and we may well ask ourselves what will others owe to us.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“A man does not have to be an angel to be a saint.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“As we know life in ourselves we want to understand life in the universe in order to enter into harmony with it.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“The doctor of the future will be oneself.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“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.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“The fundamental principle of morality which we seek as a necessity for thought is not, however, a matter only of arranging and deepening current views of good and evil, but also of expanding and extending these. A man is really ethical only when he obeys the constraint laid on him to help all life which he is able to succour, and when he goes out of his way to avoid injuring anything living. He does not ask how far this or that life deserves sympathy as valuable in itself, nor how far it is capable of feeling. To him life as such is sacred. He shatters no ice crystal that sparkles in the sun, tears no leaf from its tree, breaks off no flower, and is careful not to crush any insect as he walks. If he works by lamplight on a summer evening, he prefers to keep the window shut and to breathe stifling air, rather than to see insect after insect fall on his table with singed and sinking wings.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“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.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“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.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah…and died to give his work its final consecration never existed. [“Modern Christian Thought: The twentieth century, Volume 2” by James C. Livingston, Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, p.13]”
— Albert Schweitzer
“Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter — to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“Whoever is spared personal pain must feel himself called to help in diminishing the pain of others. We must all carry our share of the misery which lies upon the world.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.”
— Albert Schweitzer
“Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”
— Albert Schweitzer