Quotes from Albert Schweitzer

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

A man can do only what a man can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.

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

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.

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

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.

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. It is an uncomfortable doctrine which the true ethics whisper into my ear. You are happy, they say; therefore you are called upon to give much.

Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality.

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

The African is my brother-but he is my younger brother by several centuries.

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

the tragedy of life is not that we die, but is rather, what dies inside a man while he lives.

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

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.

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

Truth has not special time of its own. Its hour is now -- always and indeed then most truly when it seems unsuitable to actual circumstances.

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

You must give some time to your fellow men. Even if it's a little thing, do something for others - something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.

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

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.

True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness: 'I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live

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.

The doctor of the future will be oneself.