"We cannot abdicate our conscience to an..." - Quote by Albert Schweitzer
We cannot abdicate our conscience to an organization, nor to a government.
More by Albert Schweitzer
“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.”
“Preservation of life is the only true joy.”
“If you study life deeply, its profundity will seize you suddenly with dizziness.”
More on Conscience
“I shall not be deprived ... of a comfort in the worst event, if I retain a consciousness of having acted to the best of my judgment.”
“Segregation, as even the segregationists know in their hearts, is morally wrong and sinful. If it weren't, the white South would not be haunted as it is by a deep sense of guilt for what it has done to the Negro - guilt for patronizing him, degrading him, brutalizing him, depersonalizing him, thingifying him; guilt for lying to itself. This is the source of the schizophrenia that the South will suffer until it goes through its crisis of conscience.”
“Besides, they are our outward consciences,And preachers to us all, admonishingThat we should drew us fairly for our end.”
More on Responsibility
“Do not spill thy soul in running hither and yon, grieving over the mistakes and the vices of others. The one person whom it is most necessary to reform is yourself.”
“Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.”
“They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today-my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”