The quotations are arranged by author name. Current counts: Authors: 8,146. Quotations: 38,970 Select the first character of the author's last name that you want to look at: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

---

Albert Schweitzer

b: Kaysersberg, Germany, Jan 14, 1875

d: Lambarene, Gabon, Sep 4, 1965

Albert Schweitzer was a Franco-German (Alsatian) theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Alsace-Lorraine, in the German Empire. Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of Jesus as depicted by historical-critical methodology current at his time in certain academic circles, as well as the traditional Christian view, depicting a Jesus Christ who expected and predicted the imminent end of the world. He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of "Reverence for Life", expressed in many ways, but most famously in founding and sustaining the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, now in Gabon, west central Africa (then French Equatorial Africa). As a music scholar and organist, he studied the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach and influenced the Organ reform movement (Orgelbewegung). Schweitzer's passionate quest was to discover a universal ethical philosophy, anchored in a universal reality, and make it directly available to all of humanity.

---

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

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 a saint.

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.

An idea is, in the end, always stronger than circumstances.

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.

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

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.

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

Do something for somebody every day for which you do not get paid.

Every man has to seek in his own way to make his own self more noble and to realize his own true worth.

Example is leadership.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

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

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

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.

I have four things to learn in life: to think clearly without hurry or confusion; to love everybody sincerely; to act in everything with the highest motives; to trust in God unhesitatingly.

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.

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. -

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.

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.

It's the friends you can call up at 4 am that matter.

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.

Knowing all truth is less than doing a little bit of good.

Late on the third day, at the very moment when, at sunset, we were making our way through a herd of hippopotamuses, there flashed upon my mind, unforeseen and unsought, the phrase, Reverence for Life.

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

Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

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.

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.

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

Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality, namely that good consists in maintaining, assisting, and enhancing life, and that to destroy, to harm, or to hinder life is evil.

Some women hold up dresses that are so ugly and they always say the same thing: 'This looks much better on.' On what? On fire?

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have kindled this inner light.

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

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

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

The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

The one possible way of giving meaning to [man's] existence is that of raising his natural relation to the world to a spiritual one.

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

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

The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.

The tragedy of man is what dies inside himself while he still lives.

There are two means of refuge from the misery of life - music and cats.

There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.''

To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course.

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

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

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

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

What is nationalism? It is an ignoble patriotism.

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

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

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.