Albert Schweitzer Quotes

Source: Die Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben, C.H.Beck, 2008, p. 111

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

The only ones among us who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

The demands of Jesus are difficult because they require us to do something extraordinary. At the same time He asks us to regard these [acts of goodness] as something usual, ordinary.

Not less strong than the will to truth must be the will to sincerity. Only an age, which can show the courage of sincerity, can possess truth, which works as a spiritual force within it.

We always know that society is full of folly and will deceive us in the matter of humanity.
It is an unreliable horse, and blind into the bargain. Woe to the driver who falls asleep!

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me.

Altogether, Jesus never behaves like a man wandering in a system of delusions. He reacts in absolutely normal fashion to what is said to Him, and to the events that concern Him. He is never out of touch with reality.

Man has the lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end up destroying the earth.

I do not believe that we can put into anyone ideas which are not in him
already. As a rule there is in everyone all sorts of good ideas, ready
like tinder. But much of this tinder catches fire, or catches it
successfully, only when it meets some flame or spark from the outside,
from some other person. Often, too, our own light goes out, and is
rekindled by some experience we go through with a fellow man. Thus we
have each of us cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have
lighted the flame within us. If we had before us those who have thus
been a blessing to us, and could tell them how it came about, they would
be amazed to learn what passed over from their life to ours.

"The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah...and died to give his work its final consecration never existed. ["Modern Christian Thought: The twentieth century, Volume 2" by James C. Livingston, Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, p.13]"

True resignation consists of this: that man, feeling his subordination to the course of world events, makes his way toward inward freedom from the fate that shapes his external existence. Inward freedom gives him the strength to triumph over the difficulties of everyday life and to become a deeper and more inward person, calm, and peaceful. Resignation, therefore, is the spiritual and ethical affirmation of one’s own existence. Only he that has gone through the trial of resignation is capable of accepting the world.

May the men who hold the destiny of peoples in their hands, studiously avoid anything that might cause the present situation to deteriorate and become even more dangerous. May they take to heart the words of the Apostle Paul: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." These words are valid not only for individuals, but for nations as well. May these nations, in their efforts to maintain peace, do their utmost to give the spirit time to grow and to act.

If rational thought thinks itself out to a conclusion, it arrives at something non-rational which, nevertheless, is a necessity of thought. This is the paradox which dominates our spiritual life. If we try to get on without this non-rational element, there result views of the world and of life which have neither vitality nor value.

The essential element in Christianity as it was preached by Jesus and as it is comprehended by thought, is this, that it is only through love that we can attain to communion with God. All living knowledge of God rests upon this foundation: that we experience Him in our lives as Will-to-Love.