Quotes from Albert Schweitzer

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.

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.'

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

Man's ethics must not end with man, but should extend to the universe. He must regain the consciousness of the great Chain of Life from which he cannot be separated.

A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.

For us the great men are not those who solved the problems, but those whodiscovered them.

All the kindness which a man puts out into the world works on the heart and thoughts of mankind.

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

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

The destiny of man is to be more and more human.

The man who has become a thinking being feels a compulsion to give every will-to-live the same reverence for life that he gives to his own. He experiences that other life in his own.

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

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

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

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.

If you love something so much let it go. If it comes back it was meant to be; if it doesn't it never was.

"The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom."

Our age is bent on trying to make the barren tree of skepticism fruitful by tying the fruits of truth on its branches.

The spirit of the age is filled with the disdain for thinking.

You don't live in a world all alone. Your brothers are here too.

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.

All work that is worth anything is done in faith.

We ought all to make an effort to act on our first thoughts and let our unspoken gratitude find expression. Then there will be more sunshine in the world, and more power to work for what is good.

Not only is example the best way to teach, it is the only way.