Quotes by Albert Schweitzer

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

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

From naive simplicity we arrive at more profound simplicity.

Only those who respect the personality of others can be of real use to them.

Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.

To me, good health is more than just exercise and diet. It's really a point of view and a mental attitude you have about yourself.

Therapy is the boat across the river, but most don't want to get off. Don't blame, forgive, All healing is self-healing.

Rational thinking which is free from assumptions ends therefore in mysticism.

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

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.

Even if it's a little thing, do something for those who have need of a man's 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.

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

You must give some time to your fellow man. 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. For remember, you don't live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here, too.

At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

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.

Ideals are thoughts. So long as they exist merely as thoughts, the power in them remains ineffective.

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.

The disastrous feature of our civilization is that it is far more developed materially than spiritually. Its balance is disturbed.

It is not always granted to the sower to see the harvest.

I am certain and have always stressed that the destination of mankind is to become more and more humane. The ideal of humanity has to be revived.

All people are endowed with the faculty of compassion, and for this reason can develop the humanitarian spirit.

I too had thoughts once of being an intellectual, but I found it too difficult.

Mysticism occurs whenever a human being sees the separation between the natural and the supernatural, between the temporal and the eternal, as overcome.

The the question whether I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hope are optimistic.

Reincarnation contains a most comforting explanation of reality by means of which Indian thought surmounts difficulties which baffle the thinkers of Europe.

Only an ethical movement can rescue us from barbarism, and the ethical comes into existence only in individuals.

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

Renunciation of thinking is a declaration of spiritual bankruptcy.

Don't stop to ask whether the animal or plant you meet deserves your sympathy, or how much it feels, or even whether it can feel at all: respect it and consider all life sacred.

We must all die. But that I can save him from days of torture, that is what I feel as my great and ever new privilege. Pain is a more terrible lord of mankind than even death itself.

The tragedy in a man's life is what dies inside of him while he lives.

Your life is something opaque, not transparent, as long as you look at it in an ordinary human way. But if you hold it up against the light of God's goodness, it shines and turns transparent, radiant and bright. And then you ask yourself in amazement: Is this really my own life I see before me?

The most difficult thing I have ever had to do is follow the guidance I prayed for.

It is not enough to merely exist. It's not enough to say, 'I'm earning enough to live and support my family. I do my work well. I'm a good parent.' That's all very well. But you must do something more.

When man learns to respect even the smallest being of creation...nobody has to teach him to love his fellow man. Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.

We need a boundless ethics which will include animals also.

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

The great fault of all ethics hitherto has been that they believed themselves to have to deal only with the relations of man to man. In reality, however, the question is what is his attitude to the world and all life that comes within his reach.

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.

There is much coldness among men because we do not dare to be as cordial as we really are.

Try to tell the people of America about Dr. Gerson's merits and ...results...I wish you the best in your difficult task.

Most men are scantily nourished on a modicum of happiness and a number of empty thoughts which life lays on their plates. They are kept in the road of life through stern necessity by elemental duties which they cannot avoid.

No man need fear death, he need fear only that he may die without having known his greatest power: the power of his free will to give his life for others.

Those who experiment on animals should never be able to quiet their own conscience by telling themselves that these cruelties have a worthy aim.

Because I have confidence in the power of truth, and of the spirit, I have confidence in the future of mankind.

The Bhagavad-Gita has a profound influence on the spirit of mankind by its devotion to God which is manifested by actions.

Pablo Casals is a great musician in all he does: a cellist without equal, and extraordinary conductor and composer with something to say. I have been profoundly impressed by all I have heard of his work, but he is a musician of this stature because he is also a great man.

I see in him (Dr. Max Gerson) one of the most eminent medical geniuses in the history of medicine...he was greatly impeded by adverse political conditions.

There can be no Kingdom of God in the world without the Kingdom of God in our hearts.

We are gripped by God's will of love, and must help carry out that will in this world, in small things as in great things, in saving as in pardoning. To be glad instruments of God's love in this imperfect world is the service to which we are called.

My life carries its own meaning in itself.

It is only through love that we can attain to communion with God. All living knowledge of God rests upon this foundation: that we experience him in our lives as Will-to-love.

I do not know what your destiny may be, but I do know this, that not one of you will find the happiness that each of you is seeking until you have first sought and found a way in which to unselfishly serve others.

At that point in life where your talent meets the needs of the world, that is where God wants you to be.

Thought is the strongest thing we have. Work done by true and profound thought -- that is a real force.

Do not lose heart, even if you must wait a bit before finding the right thing. Be prepared for disappointment also, but do not abandon the quest.

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

Reverence for life brings us into a spiritual relation with the world which is independent of all knowledge of the universe.

A good example has twice the value of good advice.

The fellowship of those who bear the mark of pain: who are the members of this Fellowship? Those who have learnt by experience what physical pain and bodily anguish mean, belong together all the world over; they are united by a secret bond.

By ethical conduct toward all creatures, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the universe.

My view is that we stand up for treating the animals in a considerate way, for completely renouncing the eating of meat and also for speaking out against it. This is what I do myself. And in this way many a one becomes aware of a problem that was put forward so late.

Search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.

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

Preservation of life is the only true joy.

Every person I have known who has been truly happy has learned how to serve others.

Faith which refuses to face indisputable facts is but little faith. Truth is always gain, however hard it is to accommodate ourselves to it. To linger in any kind of untruth proves to be a departure from the straight way of faith.

Every start on an untrodden path is a venture which only in unusual circumstances looks sensible and likely to succeed.

Each act of unfaithfulness toward our inner being is a blot on our souls. If we continue to be unfaithful, our souls are eventually torn apart and we slowly bleed to death.

Affirmation of the world, which means affirmation of the will-to-live that manifests itself around me, is only possible if I devote myself to other life.

The witch doctor succeeds for the same reason all the rest of us succeed. Each patient carries his or her own doctor inside him or her. They come to us not knowing that truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work.

Let us rejoice in the truth, wherever we find its lamp burning.

Animal protection is education to the humanity.

Be faithful to your love and you mill be recompensed beyond measure.

The stronger the reverence for natural life, the stronger grows also that for spiritual life.

The interior joy we feel when we have done a good deed is the nourishment the soul requires.

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

The last fact which knowledge can discover is that the world is a manifestation, and in every way a puzzling manifestation, of the universal will to live.

Late on the third day, at the very moment when, at sunset, ..., there flashed upon my mind, unforeseen and unsought, the phrase Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben (reverence for life).

I used to suffer particularly because the poor animals must endure so much pain and want. The sight of an old, limping horse being dragged along by one man while another man struck him with
a stick he was being driven to the Colmar slaughterhouse -- haunted me for weeks.

The highest knowledge is to know that we are surrounded by mystery.

The gratitude ascending from man to God is the supreme transaction between earth and heaven.

If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter -- to all these music gives voice.

All art speaks in signs and symbols. No one can explain how it happens that the artist can waken to life in us the existence that he has seen and lives through. No artistic speech is the adequate expression of what it represents; its vital force comes from what is unspoken in it.

Affirmation of life is the spiritual act by which man ceases to live unreflectively and begins to devote himself to his life with reverence in order to raise it to its true value. To affirm life is to deepen, to make more inward, and to exalt the will.

In modern European thought a tragedy is occurring in that the original bonds uniting the affirmative attitude towards the world with ethics are, by a slow but irresistible process, loosening and finally parting. Out of my life and Thought.

O heavenly Father,
protect and bless all things
that have breath: guard them
from all evil and let them sleep in peace.

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.

Example is leadership.

It is through the idealism of youth that man catches sight of truth, and in that idealism he possesses a wealth which he must never exchange for anything else.

In case my life should end with the cannibals, I hope they will write on my tombstone, 'We have eaten Dr. Schweitzer. He was good to the end.'

It's supposed to be a secret, but I'll tell you anyway. We doctors do nothing. We only help. And encourage the doctor within.

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. Extract from 'Memories of childhood and youth.'

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, Gratitude -- the Secret of Life.

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

Even if it is a little thing, do something for those who have need of help.

There slowly grew up in me an unshakable conviction that we have no right to inflict suffering and death on another living creature, unless there is some unavoidable necessity for it.

We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

He who does not reflect his life back to God in gratitude does not know himself.

Think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flames within us.

Constant Kindness can accomplish much.

The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature.

Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives.

It is the fate of every truth to be an object of ridicule when it is first acclaimed.

Ethics is in its unqualified form extended responsibility with regard to everything that has life.

Every patient carries her or his own doctor inside.

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

To the question whether I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hoping are optimistic.

Happiness? That's nothing more than health and a poor memory.

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

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint.

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.

Ethics is the activity of man directed to secure the inner perfection of his own personality.

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.

If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.

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.

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now -- always.

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.

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

Do something for somebody everyday for which you do not get paid.

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

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.

Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal.

Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.

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

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

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.

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.

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.

We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.

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.

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.

The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.

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.