Albert Schweitzer Quotes

that the humanitarian work to be done in the world should, for its accomplishment, call us as men, not as members of any particular nation or religious body.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate.

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

Szczęście to jedyna rzecz, która się mnoży, jeśli się ją dzieli

Judging by what I have learned about men and women, I am convinced that far more idealistic aspiration exists than is ever evident. Just as the rivers we see are much less numerous than the underground streams, so the idealism that is visible is minor compared to what men and women carry in their hearts, unreleased or scarcely released. Mankind is waiting and longing for those who can accomplish the task of untying what is knotted and bringing the underground waters to the surface.

All acts and facts are a product of spiritual power, the successful ones of power which is strong enough; the unsuccessful ones of power which is too weak. Does my behavior in respect of love affect nothing? That is be¬ cause there is not enough love in me. Am I powerless
against the untruthfulness and the lies which have their being all around me? The reason is that I myself am not truthful enough. Have I to watch dislike and ill will carrying on their sad game? That means that I myself have not yet completely laid aside small-mindedness and envy. Is my love of peace misunderstood and scorned?
That means that I am not yet sufficiently peace-loving.

O ser humano mal reconhece os demônios de sua criação

Our society has also ceased to allow to all men, as such, a human value and a human dignity; many sections of the human race have become merely raw material and property in human form.

The only really happy people are those who have learned how to serve.

Nowhere so well as in the Well-tempered Clavichord are we made to realise that art was Bach’s religion. He does not depict natural soul-states, like Beethoven in his sonatas, no striving and struggling towards a goal, but the reality of life felt by a spirit always conscious of being superior to life, a spirit in which the most contradictory emotions, wildest grief and exuberant cheerfulness, are simply phases of a fundamental superiority of soul. It is this that gives the same transfigured air to the sorrow laden E flat minor prelude of the First Part and the care-free, volatile prelude in G major in the Second Part. Whoever has once felt this wonderful tranquility has comprehended the mysterious spirit that has here expressed all it knew and felt of life in the secret language of tone, and will render Bach the thanks we render only to the great souls to whom it is given to reconcile men with life and bring them peace.

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing you will be successful.

Kesuksesan bukanlah kunci kepada kebahagiaan. Kebahagiaan adalah kunci kepada kesuksesan. Jika Anda mencintai apa yang Anda lakukan, Anda akan sukses.

Kesuksesan bukanlah kunci kebahagiaan. Kebahagiaanlah kunci kesuksesan. Jika Anda mencintai apa yang Anda lakukan, Anda akan berhasil.

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!

As a contrast to the Bach of pure music I present the Bach who is a poet and painter in sound. In his music and in his texts he expresses the emotional as well as the descriptive with great vitality and clarity. Before all else he aims at rendering the pictorial in lines of sound. He is even more tone painter than tone poet. His art is nearer to that of Berlioz than to that of Wagner. If the text speaks of drifting mists, of boisterous winds, of roaring rivers, of waves that ebb and flow, of leaves falling from the tree, of bells that toll for the dying, of the confident faith that walks with firm steps or the weak faith that falters, of the proud who will be debased and the humble who will be exalted, of Satan rising in rebellion, of angels on the clouds of heaven, then one sees and hears all this in his music. Bach has, in fact, his own language of sound. There are in his music constantly recurring rhythmical motives expressing peaceful bliss, lively joy, intense pain, or sorrow sublimely borne. The impulse to express poetic and pictorial concepts is the essence of music. It addresses itself to the listener's creative imagination and seeks to kindle in him the feelings and visions with which the music was composed. But this it can do only if the person who uses the language of sound possesses the mysterious faculty of rendering thoughts with a superior clarity and precision. In this respect Bach is the greatest of the great.