"We must never allow the voice of humanity within us to be silenced. It is humanity's sympathy with all creatures that first makes us truly human."
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Albert Schweitzer quotes (page 3 of 18)
347 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"The elemental fact, present in our consciousness every moment of our existence, is: I am life that wills to live, in the midst of life that wills to live.... The essence of the humane spirit is: Preserve life, promote life, help life to achieve its highest destiny. The essence of Evil is: Destroy life, harm life, hamper the development of life"
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"Nature compels us to recognize the fact of mutual dependence, each life necessarily helping the other lives who are linked to it. In the very fibers of our being, we bear within ourselves the fact of the solidarity of life."
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"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."
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"There is no higher religion than human service."
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"Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth."
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"Open your eyes and look for some man, or some work for the sake of men, which needs a little time, a little friendship, a little sympathy, a little sociability, a little human toil....It is needed in every nook and corner. Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity."
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"You must not expect anything from others. It's you, of yourself, of whom you must ask a lot. Only from oneself has one the right to ask everything and anything. This way it's up to you - your own choices - what you get from others remains a present, a gift."
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"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."
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"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."
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"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."
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"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."
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"Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight."
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"Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter -- to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water."
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"To the man who is truly ethical all life is sacred, including that which from the human point of view seems lower in the scale. He makes distinctions only as each case comes before him, and under the pressure of necessity, as, for example, when it falls to him to decide which of two lives he must sacrifice in order to preserve the other. But all through this series of decisions he is conscious of acting on subjective grounds and arbitrarily, and knows that he bears the responsibility for the life which is sacrificed."
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"No one can give a definition of the soul. But we know what it feels like. The soul is the sense of something higher than ourselves, something that stirs in us thoughts, hopes, and aspirations which go out to the world of goodness, truth and beauty. The soul is a burning desire to breathe in this world of light and never to lose it--to remain children of light."
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"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."
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"The interior joy we feel when we have done a good deed is the nourishment the soul requires."
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"You know of the disease in Central Africa called sleeping sickness. . . . There also exists a sleeping sickness of the soul. Its most dangerous aspect is that one is unaware of its coming. That is why you have to be careful. As soon as you notice the slightest sign of indifference, the moment you become aware of the loss of a certain seriousness, of longing, of enthusiasm and zest, take it as a warning. You should realize your soul suffers if you live superficially."
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"Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation."
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