Albert Schweitzer Quotes

“Example is leadership.”

“We cannot abdicate our conscience to an organization, nor to a government. 'Am I my brother's keeper?' Most certainly I am! I cannot escape my responsibility by saying the State will do all that is necessary. It is a tragedy that nowadays so many think and feel otherwise.”

“Never for a moment do we lay aside our mistrust of the ideals established by society, and of the convictions which are kept by it in circulation. We always know that society is full of folly and will deceive us in the matter of humanity. ... humanity meaning consideration for the existence and the happiness of individual human beings.”

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

“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.”

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

“I am life which wants to live admidst of lives that want to live.”

“My life carries its own meaning in itself.”

“Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality.”

“To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kindness that stands behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude.”

“The great secret of success is to go through life as a person who never gets used up. That is possible for those who never argue and strive with people and facts, but in all experience retires upon themselves, and look for the ultimate cause of things in themselves.”

“As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.”

“Constant Kindness can accomplish much.”

“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.”

“Only when an ideal of peace is born in the minds of the peoples will the institutions set up to maintain this peace effectively fulfill the function expected of them.”

“Who shall enumerate the many ways in which that costly piece of fixed capital, a human being , may be employed! More of him is wanted everywhere! Hunt, then, for some situation in which your humanity may be used.”

“Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.”

“I too had thoughts once of being an intellectual, but I found it too difficult.”

“All art speaks in signs and symbols. No one can explain how it happens that the artist can waken to life in us the existence that he has seen and lives through. No artistic speech is the adequate expression of what it represents; its vital force comes from what is unspoken in it.”

“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.”

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

“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”

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

“One person can and does make a difference.”

“It's not enough merely to exist. Every man has to seek in his own way to make his own self more noble and to relize his own true worth.”