Albert Schweitzer Quotations

Tap to Read ➤ Sonal Panse

Dr. Albert Schweitzer was a humanitarian, musician, and medical doctor. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in west central Africa. Listed are some of his famous quotes.

1. "In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit." 2. "A man can only do what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day."

3. "A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up." 4. "Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing."

5. "One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity."

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

7. "Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it." 8. "Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory."

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

11. "Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now - always." 12. "Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace."

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

14. "Not one of us knows what effect his life produces, and what he gives to others; that is hidden from us and must remain so, though we are often allowed to see some little fraction of it, so that we may not lose courage. The way in which power works is a mystery." 15. "The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives."

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

17. "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." 18. "Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life."

19. "Do something wonderful, people may imitate it." 20. "A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint."

21. "My life is my argument." 22. "It is not enough merely to exist. It's not enough to say, 'I'm earning enough to support my family. I do my work well. I'm a good father, husband, churchgoer.' That's all very well. But you must do something more. Seek always to do some good, somewhere."

23. "We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness." 24. "Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight."

25. "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."

26. "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."

27. "Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile." 28. "The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colors and textures that come alive in others."

29. "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.

30. "Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them."

31. 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 to live.

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

34. "We must never permit the voice of humanity within us to be silenced. It is man's sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man." 35. "Any religion or philosophy, which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion or philosophy." 36. "From native simplicity we arrive at more profound simplicity."

37. "We cannot possibly let ourselves get frozen into regarding everyone we do not know as an absolute stranger." 38. "The awareness that we are all human beings together has become lost in war and through politics."

39. "We cannot abdicate our conscience to an organization, nor to a government. 'Am I my brother's keeper?' Most certainly I am! I cannot escape my responsibility by saying the State will do all that is necessary. It is a tragedy that nowadays so many think and feel otherwise."

40. "Faith that 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."

41. "I was convinced--and I am so still--that the fundamental principles of Christianity (or any other religion) have to be proved true by reasoning, and by no other method. Reason, I said to myself, is given us that we may bring everything within the range of its action, even the most exalted ideas of religion."

42. "Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose." 43. "I too had thoughts once of being an intellectual, but I found it too difficult."