Albert Schweitzer Quotes

In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet.

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.

What has been presented as Christianity during these nineteen centuries is only a beginning, full of mistakes, not full blown Christianity springing from the spirit of Jesus.

Die Welt ist nicht nur Geschehen, sondern auch Leben.

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.

The thinking man must … oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. True manhood is too precious a spiritual good for us to surrender any part of it to thoughtlessness.

I have given up the ambition to become a great scholar, I want to be more — simply a human.

A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.

Every start upon an untrodden path is a venture which only in unusual circumstances looks sensible and likely to be successful.

We await the Indian thinker who will expound to us the mysticism of spiritual union with infinite Being as it is in itself, not as it is set down in the ancient texts or according to the meaning read into them by their interpreters. It belongs to the nature of mysticism that it is timeless and appeals to no other authority than that of the truth which it carries within it. The pathway from imperfect to perfect recognised truth leads through the valley of reality.

It will always remain incomprehensible that our generation, which has shown itself so great by its discoveries and inventions, could fall so low in the realms of thought.

Let me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and further life — it is bad to damage and destroy life. And this ethic, profound and universal, has the significance of a religion. It is religion.

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

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. A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, and that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help. Only the universal ethic of the feeling of responsibility in an ever-widening sphere for all that lives — only that ethic can be founded in thought. … The ethic of Reverence for Life, therefore, comprehends within itself everything that can be described as love, devotion, and sympathy whether in suffering, joy, or effort.

O, heavenly Father, protect and bless all things that have breath; guard them from all evil, and let them sleep in peace.