The ethic of Reverence for Life is the ethic of Love widened into universality. - Albert Schweitzer

The only originality I claim is that for me this truth goes hand in hand with the intellectual certainty that the human spirit is capable of creating in our time a new mentality, an ethical mentality. Inspired by this certainty, I too proclaim this truth in the hope that my testimony may help to prevent its rejection as an admirable sentiment but a practical impossibility. Many a truth has lain unnoticed for a long time, ignored simply because no one perceived its potential for becoming reality.

Wer unter uns durch das, was er erlebt hat, wissend geworden ist über Schmerz und Angst, muß mithelfen, daß denen draußen in leiblicher Not Hilfe zuteil werde, wie sie ihm widerfuhr. Er gehört nicht mehr ganz sich selber an, sondern ist Bruder all derer geworden, die leiden. (Aus meinem Leben und Denken, S. 145)

slavery, witch burning, torture, and all the other ancient and medieval forms of inhumanity. It was only when it experienced the influence of the thinking of the Age of Enlightenment that it was stirred into entering the struggle for humanity. The remembrance of this ought to preserve it forever from assuming any air of superiority in comparison with thought.