Albert Schweitzer Quotes

Thought is the strongest thing we have. Work done by true and profound thought - that is a real force.
Albert Schweitzer
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.
Albert Schweitzer
A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.
Albert Schweitzer
Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment and learn again to exercise ... his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals.
Albert Schweitzer
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
Albert Schweitzer
Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things man will not find peace.
Albert Schweitzer
There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
Albert Schweitzer
Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things man will not find peace.
Albert Schweitzer
There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
Albert Schweitzer
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.
Albert Schweitzer
A man does not have to be an angel in order to be a saint.
Albert Schweitzer
It is only through love that we can attain to communion with God. All living knowledge of God rest upon this foundation: that we experience Him in our lives as Will-to-love.
Albert Schweitzer
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.
Albert Schweitzer
Love . . . includes fellowship in suffering in joy and in effort.
Albert Schweitzer
As we acquire more knowledge things do not become more comprehensible but more mysterious.
Albert Schweitzer
Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.
Albert Schweitzer
We wander through this life together in a semi-darkness in which none of us can distinguish exactly the features of his neighbour. Only from time to time through some experience that we have of our companion or through some remark that he passes he stands for a moment close to us as though illuminated by a flash of lightning. Then we see him as he really is.
Albert Schweitzer
Life becomes harder for us when we live for others but it also becomes richer and happier.
Albert Schweitzer
Even if it's a little thing do something for those who have need of help something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.
Albert Schweitzer
You don't live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too.
Albert Schweitzer
Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.
Albert Schweitzer
Happiness? That's nothing more than health and a poor memory.
Albert Schweitzer
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.
Albert Schweitzer
The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.
Albert Schweitzer
A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.
Albert Schweitzer
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.
Albert Schweitzer
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 more upon it.
Albert Schweitzer
We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.
Albert Schweitzer
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.
Albert Schweitzer
Man can no longer live for himself alone. We must realize that all life is valuable and that we are united to all life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship with the universe.
Albert Schweitzer
The tragedy in a man’s life is what dies inside of him while he lives.
Albert Schweitzer
Wherever you turn, you can find someone who needs you. Even if it is a little thing, do something for which there is no pay but the privilege of doing it. Remember, you don't live in a world all of your own.
Albert Schweitzer
The thinking (person) must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another.
Albert Schweitzer
The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; but to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies.
Albert Schweitzer
The interior joy we feel when we have done a good deed is the nourishment the soul requires.
Albert Schweitzer
I therefore used the last ten minutes of our classes to recite with them words from the Bible and verses from hymns, so that they would know them and the words would stay with them throughout their lives. The aim of my teaching was to bring to their hearts and thoughts the great truths of the Gospels so religion would have meaning in their lives and give them the strength to resist the irreligious forces that might assail them. I also tried to awaken in them a love for the Church, and a desire for that hour of spiritual peace to be found in the Sunday service. I taught them to respect traditional doctrines, but at the same time to hold fast to the saying of Paul that where the spirit of Christ is, there is freedom.
Albert Schweitzer
Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come.
Albert Schweitzer
I look back upon my youth and realize how so many people gave me help, understanding, courage – very important things to me – and they never knew it. They entered into my life and became powers within me. All of us live spiritually by what others have given us, often unwittingly, in the significant hours of our life. At the time these significant hours may not even be perceived. We may not recognize them until years later when we look back, as one remembers some long-ago music or a boyhood landscape. We all owe to others much of the gentleness and wisdom that we have made our own; and we may well ask ourselves what will others owe to us.
Albert Schweitzer
A man does not have to be an angel to be a saint.
Albert Schweitzer
As we know life in ourselves we want to understand life in the universe in order to enter into harmony with it.
Albert Schweitzer
The doctor of the future will be oneself.
Albert Schweitzer
Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.
Albert Schweitzer
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.
Albert Schweitzer
The fundamental principle of morality which we seek as a necessity for thought is not, however, a matter only of arranging and deepening current views of good and evil, but also of expanding and extending these. A man is really ethical only when he obeys the constraint laid on him to help all life which he is able to succour, and when he goes out of his way to avoid injuring anything living. He does not ask how far this or that life deserves sympathy as valuable in itself, nor how far it is capable of feeling. To him life as such is sacred. He shatters no ice crystal that sparkles in the sun, tears no leaf from its tree, breaks off no flower, and is careful not to crush any insect as he walks. If he works by lamplight on a summer evening, he prefers to keep the window shut and to breathe stifling air, rather than to see insect after insect fall on his table with singed and sinking wings.
Albert Schweitzer
For animals that are overworked, underfed, and cruelly treated; for all wistful creatures in captivity that beat their wings against bars; for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry; for all that must be put to death...and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words.
Albert Schweitzer
We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace.
Albert Schweitzer
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]
Albert Schweitzer
Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter -- to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water.
Albert Schweitzer
Whoever is spared personal pain must feel himself called to help in diminishing the pain of others. We must all carry our share of the misery which lies upon the world.
Albert Schweitzer
Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
Albert Schweitzer
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
Albert Schweitzer
Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.
Albert Schweitzer
O heavenly Father,protect and bless all thingsthat have breath: guard themfrom all evil and let them sleep in peace.
Albert Schweitzer
There are only three ways to teach a child. The first is by example, the second is by example, the third is by example.
Albert Schweitzer
He who does not reflect his life back to God in gratitude does not know himself.
Albert Schweitzer
Das Glück ist das einzige, das sich verdoppelt, wenn man es teilt.
Albert Schweitzer
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 have sought and found how to serve.
Albert Schweitzer
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.
Albert Schweitzer
Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.
Albert Schweitzer
It's not enough merely to exist. Every man has to seek in his own way to make his own self more noble and to relize his own true worth.
Albert Schweitzer