Albert Schweitzer Quotes and Quotation

• The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up. That is possible for him who never argues and strives with men and facts, but in all experience retires upon himself, and looks for the ultimate cause of things in himself.
  • Memoirs of Childhood and Youth

• I was convinced —and I am so still —that the fundamental principles of Christianity have to be proved true by reasoning, and by no other method. Reason, I said to myself, is given us that we may bring everything within the range of its action, even the most exalted ideas of religion. And this certainty filled me with joy.
  • Memoirs of Childhood and Youth

Reverence for Life

• At sunset of the third day, near the village of Igendja, we moved along an island set in the middle of the wide river. On a sandback to our left, four hippopotamuses and their young plodded along in our same direction. Just then, in my great tiredness and discouragement, the phrase, Reverence for Life, struck me like a flash. As far as I knew, it was a phrase I had never heard nor ever read. I realized at once that it carried within itself the solution to the problem that had been torturing me. Now I knew that a system of values which concerns itself only with our relationship to other people is incomplete and therefore lacking in power for good. Only by means of reverence for life can we establish a spiritual and humane relationship with both people and all living creatures within our reach. Only in this fashion can we avoid harming others, and, within the limits our our capacity, go to their aid whenever they need us.

• Those who thank God much are the truly wealthy. So our inner happiness depends not on what we experience but on the degree of our gratitude to God, whatever the experience.

• Whoever has looked into the eyes of Jesus as he appears to us in his words knows that true happiness consists of service to this great One and his Spirit —and a life offerred to his work. Those who accept this mode of life, who know how to live it, become brothers and sisters.

• The man who dares to live his life with death before his eyes, the man who receives life back bit by bit and lives as though it did not belong to him by right but has been bestowed on him as a gift, the man who has such freedom and peace of mind that he has overcome death in his thoughts —such a man believes in eternal life because it is already his, it is a present experience, and he already benefits from its peace and joy. He cannot describe this experience in words. He may not be able to conform his view with the traditional picture of it. But one thing he knows for certain: Something within us does not pass away, something goes on living and working wherever the kingdom of the spirit is present. It is already working and living within us, because in our hearts we have been able to reach life by overcoming death.

• I do not want to frighten you by telling you about the temptations life will bring. Anyone who is healthy in spirit will overcome them. But there is something I want you to realize. It does not matter so much what you do. What matters is whether your soul is harmed by what you do. If your soul is harmed, something irreparable happens, the extent of which you won't realize until it will be too late.

• Don't let your hearts grow numb. Stay alert. It is your soul which matters.

• Any religion or philosophy which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion or philosophy.

• 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.

• Only at quite rare moments have I felt really glad to be alive. I could not but feel with a sympathy full of regret all the pain that I saw around me, not only that of men but that of the whole creation. From this community of suffering I have never tried to withdraw myself. It seemed to me a matter of course that we should all take our share of the burden of pain which lies upon the world.

• 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 only way out of today's misery is for people to become worthy of each other's trust.

Nobel Lecture: The Problem of Peace (November 4, 1954)

• We have learned to tolerate the facts of war: that men are killed en masse —some twenty million in the Second World War —that whole cities and their inhabitants are annihilated by the atomic bomb, that men are turned into living torches by incendiary bombs. We learn of these things from the radio or newspapers and we judge them according to whether they signify success for the group of peoples to which we belong, or for our enemies. When we do admit to ourselves that such acts are the results of inhuman conduct, our admission is accompanied by the thought that the very fact of war itself leaves us no option but to accept them. In resigning ourselves to our fate without a struggle, we are guilty of inhumanity.

• What really matters is that we should all of us realize that we are guilty of inhumanity. The horror of this realization should shake us out of our lethargy so that we can direct our hopes and our intentions to the coming of an era in which war will have no place.

• 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.

• Only when an ideal of peace is born in the minds of the peoples will the institutions set up to maintain this peace effectively fulfill the function expected of them.

• 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.

Attributed

• 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.

• A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, 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.

• An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight... The truly wise person is color-blind.

• Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few stones upon it.

• As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.

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

• By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world— By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.

• 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.

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

• Day by day we should weigh what we have granted to the spirit of the world against what we have denied to the spirit of Jesus, in thought and especially in deed.

• Do not let Sunday be taken from you— If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.

• Do something for somebody every day for which you do not get paid.

• Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.

• Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

• Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life; and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life is evil.

• Every man has to seek in his own way to make his own self more noble and to realize his own true worth.

• Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

• Example is leadership.

• Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It's the only thing.

• Grow into your ideals so that life cannot rob you of them.

• From naive simplicity we arrive at more profound simplicity.

• Happiness? That's nothing more than health and a poor memory.
  • Variant: Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

• I am life which wills to live in the midst of life which wills to live.
  • Variant: I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live.

• I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

• I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

• I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.

• Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.

• In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
  • Variant: Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.

• It is a man's sympathy with all creatures that truly makes him a man. Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things, man himself will not find peace.
  • Variant: It is man's sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man.

• It is not enough merely to exist. It's not enough to say, 'I'm earning enough to support my family. I do my work well. I'm a good father, husband, churchgoer.' That's all very well. But you must do something more. Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. Even if it's a little thing, do something for those who need help, something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. For remember, you don't live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here, too.

• 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.

• Let me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and further life— it is bad to damage and destroy life.

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

• Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

• Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will— his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals.

• My life is my argument.

• Not one of us knows what effect his life produces, and what he gives to others; that is hidden from us and must remain so, though we are often allowed to see some little fraction of it, so that we may not lose courage. The way in which power works is a mystery.

• One does not have to be an angel in order to be saint.
  • Variant: A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint.

• One truth stands firm. All that happens in world history rests on something spiritual. If the spiritual is strong, it creates world history. If it is weak, it suffers world history.

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

• \Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality.

• Serious illness doesn't bother me for long because I am too inhospitable a host.

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

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

• The first step in the evolution of ethics is an enlargement of the sense of solidarity with other human beings.
  • Variant: The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.

• The future of civilization depends on our overcoming the meaninglessness and hopelessness that characterizes the thoughts of men today.

• The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.

• The quiet conscience is an invention of the devil.

• The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.

• The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colours and textures that come alive in others.

• The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

• There are two means of refuge from the misery of life— music and cats.

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