Organist Quotes

“Today . . . we know that all living beings who strive to maintain life and who long to be spared pain - all living beings on earth - are our neighbors.”

“Reverence for life, veneratio vitæ, is the most direct and at the same time the profoundest achievement of my will-to-live.”

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

“The future of civilization depends on our overcoming the meaninglessness and hopelessness which characterize the thoughts and convictions of men today, and reaching a state of fresh hope and fresh determination.”

“I am conscious that meat eatingis not in accordance with the finer feelings,and I abstain from it whenever I can.”

“It doesn't matter if an animal can reason. It matters only that it is capable of suffering and that is why I consider it my neighbor.”

“We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”

“The gratitude that we encounter helps us believe in the goodness of the world, and strengthens us thereby to do what's good.”

“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.”

“What does Reverence for Life say abut the relations between [humanity] and the animal world? Whenever I injury any kind of life I must be quite certain that it is necessary. I must never go beyond the unavoidable, not even in apparently insignificant things. The farmer who has mowed down a thousand flowers in his meadow in order to feed his cows must be careful on his way home not to strike the head off a single flower by the side of the road in idle amusement, for he thereby infringes on the law of life without being under the pressure of necessity.”

“You must not expect anything from others. It's you, of yourself, of whom you must ask a lot. Only from oneself has one the right to ask everything and anything. This way it's up to you - your own choices - what you get from others remains a present, a gift.”

“The ethic of Reverence for Life prompts us to keep each other alert to what troubles us and to speak and act dauntlessly together in discharging the responsibility that we feel. It keeps us watching together for opportunities to bring some sort of help to animals in recompense for the great misery that men inflict upon them, and thus for a moment we escape from the incomprehensible horror of existence.”

“The only ones who will find real happiness are those who find a way to serve”

“When people have light in themselves, it will shine out from them. Then we get to know each other as we walk together in the darkness, without needing to pass our hands over each other's faces, or to intrude into each other's hearts.”

“I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live.”

“Bach is thus a terminal point. Nothing comes from him; everything merely leads to him.”

“Because I have confidence in the power of truth, and of the spirit, I have confidence in the future of mankind.”

“The great fault of all ethics hitherto has been that they believed themselves to have to deal only with the relations of man to man. In reality, however, the question is what is his attitude to the world and all life that comes within his reach.”

“The path of awakening is not about becoming who you are. Rather it is about unbecoming who you are not.”

“We ought all to make an effort to act on our first thoughts and let our unspoken gratitude find expression. Then there will be more sunshine in the world, and more power to work for what is good.”

“Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”

“Who can describe the injustice and the cruelties that in the course of centuries the peoples of color of the world have suffered at the hands of Europeans?... We and our civilization are burdened, really, with a great debt. We are not free to confer benefits on these men, or not, as we please; it is our duty. Anything we give them is not benevolence but atonement.”

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

“Profound love demands a deep conception and out of this develops reverence for the mystery of life. It brings us close to all beings, to the poorest and smallest as well as all others.”

“The awareness that we are all human beings together has become lost in war and through politics.”