Authors:

Albert Schweitzer Quotes - Page 12

All Quotes Age Appreciation Atheism Attitude Business Character Compassion Conscience Darkness Death Desire Destiny Devil Earth Ethics Evil Fate Feelings Friendship Giving God Gratitude Happiness Happy Healing Health Heart Helping Others Honor Horror Humanity Inspirational Integrity Jesus Joy Kindness Leadership Learning Life Love Lying Morality Motivational Nature Overcoming Pain Peace Personality Philanthropy Philosophy Public Service Reality Respect Responsibility Sacrifice Simplicity Skepticism Sleep Society Soul Spirituality Sports Strength Study Success Suffering Sympathy Thankful Thanksgiving Time Today Tragedy Truth Understanding Values Vegetarian Volunteer
The quiet conscience is an invention of the devil.

The quiet conscience is an invention of the devil.

Albert Schweitzer
Devil, Quiet, Invention

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.

Albert Schweitzer
People, Understanding, Important

Every patient carries his or her own doctor inside.

Albert Schweitzer
Health, Doctors, Patient

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.

Albert Schweitzer
Spiritual, Strong, Age
Albert Schweitzer (2015). “The Light Within Us”, p.33, Open Road Media

Once a man recognizes himself as a being surrounded by other beings in this world and begins to respect his life and take it to the highest value, he becomes a thinking being. Then he values other lives and experiences them as part of his own life. With that, his goal is to help everyone take their life to the highest value; anything which limits or destroys a life is evil. That is morality. That is how men are related to the world around them.

Albert Schweitzer
Men, Thinking, Evil

In resigning ourselves to our fate without a struggle, we are guilty of inhumanity.

Albert Schweitzer
Struggle, Fate, Guilty
Albert Schweitzer's Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. November 4, 1954.

It is a man's sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man.

Albert Schweitzer
Inspirational, Sympathy, Men

The thinking man must oppose all cruelties no matter how deeply rooted in tradition or surrounded by a halo.

Albert Schweitzer
Men, Thinking, Halos

We cannot possibly let ourselves get frozen into regarding everyone we do not know as an absolute stranger.

Albert Schweitzer
Kindness, Ignorance, Space
Albert Schweitzer (2014). “A Treasury of Albert Schweitzer”, p.60, Open Road Media

In the same way as the tree bears the same fruit year after year, but each time new fruit, all lastingly valuable ideas in thinking must always be reborn.

Albert Schweitzer
Change, Thinking, Years

The study of the Life of Jesus has had a curious history. It set out in quest of the historical Jesus, believing that when it had found Him it could bring Him straight into our time as a Teacher and Saviour. ... But He does not stay; He passes by our time and returns to His own... He returned to His own time, not owing to the application of any historical ingenuity, but by the same inevitable necessity by which the liberated pendulum returns to its original position.

Albert Schweitzer
Teacher, Jesus, Believe
"The Quest of the Historical Jesus". Book by Albert Schweitzer, transl. by W. Montgomery, 1906.

Kindness works simply and perseveringly; it produces no strained relations which prejudice its working; strained relations which already exist it relaxes. Mistrust and misunderstanding it puts to flight, and it strengthens itself by calling forth answering kindness. Hence it is the furthest reaching and the most effective of all forces.

Albert Schweitzer
Kindness, Relax, Prejudice
Albert Schweitzer (1960). “My Childhood and Youth”

But merely accepting authoritarian truth, even if that truth has some virtue, does not bring skepticism to an end. To blindly accept a truth one has never reflected upon retards the advance of reason. Our world rots in deceit. . . . Just as a tree bears the same fruit year after year and at the same time fruit that is new each year, so must all permanently valuable ideas be continually created anew in thought. But our age pretends to make a sterile tree bear fruit by tying fruits of truth onto its branches.

Albert Schweitzer
Our World, Years, Ideas

Bach is thus a terminal point. Nothing comes from him; everything merely leads to him.

Albert Schweitzer
Terminal
Albert Schweitzer (2009). “Albert Schweitzer's Ethical Vision: A Sourcebook”, p.182, Oxford University Press

The future of civilization depends on our overcoming the meaninglessness and hopelessness which characterize the thoughts and convictions of men today, and reaching a state of fresh hope and fresh determination.

Albert Schweitzer
Inspiring, Future, Men
"The decay and the restoration of civilization".

Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal.

Albert Schweitzer
Life, Court, Appeals
Albert Schweitzer (1929). “Civilization and Ethics”

What does Reverence for Life say abut the relations between [humanity] and the animal world? Whenever I injury any kind of life I must be quite certain that it is necessary. I must never go beyond the unavoidable, not even in apparently insignificant things. The farmer who has mowed down a thousand flowers in his meadow in order to feed his cows must be careful on his way home not to strike the head off a single flower by the side of the road in idle amusement, for he thereby infringes on the law of life without being under the pressure of necessity.

Albert Schweitzer
Flower, Home, Animal

Living truth is that alone which has its origins in thinking. Just as a tree bears year after year the same fruit which is each year new, so must all permanently valuable ideas be continually born again in thought.

Albert Schweitzer
Thinking, Years, Ideas
Albert Schweitzer (1949). “Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography”, New York : H. Holt

I wanted to be a doctor that I might be able to work without having to talk because for years I had been giving myself out in words.

Albert Schweitzer
Doctors, Years, Giving
Albert Schweitzer (1949). “Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography”, New York : H. Holt

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.

Albert Schweitzer
Family, Long Distance Relationship, Witty
Albert Schweitzer (2015). “The Light Within Us”, p.3, Open Road Media

Jesus means something to our world because a mighty spiritual force streams forth from him and flows through our being also. This fact can neither be shaken nor confirmed by any historical discovery. It is the solid foundation of Christianity.

Albert Schweitzer
Christian, Spiritual, Jesus
Albert Schweitzer (2005). “Albert Schweitzer: Essential Writings”

Love . . . includes fellowship in suffering, in joy and in effort.

Albert Schweitzer
Life, Effort, Joy
Albert Schweitzer (1932). “Civilization and ethics. 3d. ed”

If you study life deeply, its profundity will seize you suddenly with dizziness.

Albert Schweitzer
Life, Study, Profundity
Albert Schweitzer (2005). “Albert Schweitzer: Essential Writings”

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.

Albert Schweitzer
Pain, Lying, World
Albert Schweitzer (2014). “Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography”, p.244, Henry Holt and Company

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

Albert Schweitzer
Grows, Ideals

You May Also Like: