Albert Schweitzer Quotes

“Set a great example. Someone may imitate it.”

“We cannot understand what happens in the universe. What is glorious in it is united with what is full of horror. What is full of meaning is united to what is senseless. The spirit of the universe is at once creative and destructive — it creates while it destroys and destroys while it creates, and therefore it remains to us a riddle. And we must inevitably resign ourselves to this.”

“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.”

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

“Living truth is that alone which has its origins in thinking. Just as a tree bears year after year the same fruit which is each year new, so must all permanently valuable ideas be continually born again in thought.”

“Good is that which promotes life, evil is that which destroys life”

“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.”

“The great enemy of morality is indifference.”

“Therapy is the boat across the river, but most don't want to get off. Don't blame, forgive, All healing is self-healing”

“I do not know what your destiny may be, but I do know this, that not one of you will find the happiness that each of you is seeking until you have first sought and found a way in which to unselfishly serve others.”

“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.”

“Late on the third day, at the very moment when, at sunset, ..., there flashed upon my mind, unforeseen and unsought, the phrase “Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben” (“reverence for life”).”

“Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter -- to all these music gives voice”

“Grow into your ideals so that life cannot rob you of them.”

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

“Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.”

“Do something good and someone might imitate it.”

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

“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.”

“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 thethought of mankind as a whole.”

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

“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.”

“True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness: "I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live."”

“Just as white light consists of colored rays, so reverence for life contains all the components of ethics: love, kindliness, sympathy, empathy, peacefulness and power to forgive.”

“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.”