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What the activity of this disposition of ours means in the evolution of the world, we do not know. Nor can we regulate this activity from outside we must leave entirely to each individual its shaping and its extension. From every point of view, then, world- and life-affirmation and ethics are non-rational, and we must have the courage to admit it.

Albert Schweitzer

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Albert Schweitzer
Age: 90 †
Born: 1875
Born: January 14
Died: 1965
Died: September 4
Composer
Missionary
Music Historian
Musicologist
Organist
Philosopher
Physician
Physician Writer
Theologian
University Teacher
Mont-Libre
Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer
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More quotes by Albert Schweitzer

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Every patient carries her or his own doctor inside.
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Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
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The thinking (person) must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another.
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The only way out of today's misery is for people to become worthy of each other's trust.
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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.
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We all owe to others much of the gentleness and wisdom that we have made our own and we may well ask ourselves what will others owe to us
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Where principles and heart stand in conflict with each other, let us make the law of the spirit free from the law of principles.
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Living truth is that alone which has its origins in thinking. Just as a tree bears year after year the same fruit which is each year new, so must all permanently valuable ideas be continually born again in thought.
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The African is my brother but he is my younger brother by several centuries.
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I do not believe that we can put into anyone ideas which are not in him already. As a rule there are in everyone all sorts of good ideas, ready like tinder. But much of this tinder catches fire, or catches it successfully, only when it meets some flame or spark from outside, i.e., from some other person.
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My view is that we stand up for treating the animals in a considerate way, for completely renouncing the eating of meat and also for speaking out against it. This is what I do myself. And in this way many a one becomes aware of a problem that was put forward so late.
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The great fault of all ethics hitherto has been that they believed themselves to have to deal only with the relations of man to man. In reality, however, the question is what is his attitude to the world and all life that comes within his reach.
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The awareness that we are all human beings together has become lost in war and through politics.
Albert Schweitzer
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The time will come when public opinion will no longer tolerate amusements based on the mistreatment and killing of animals. The time will come, but when? When will we reach the point that hunting, the pleasure in killing animals for sport, will be regarded as a mental aberration?
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The gratitude that we encounter helps us believe in the goodness of the world, and strengthens us thereby to do what's good.
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My life is full of meaning to me. The life around me must be full of significance to itself. If I am to expect others to respect my life, then I must respect the other life I see.
Albert Schweitzer
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Kindness works simply and perseveringly it produces no strained relations which prejudice its working strained relations which already exist it relaxes. Mistrust and misunderstanding it puts to flight, and it strengthens itself by calling forth answering kindness. Hence it is the furthest reaching and the most effective of all forces.
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We are gripped by God’s will of love, and must help carry out that will in this world, in small things as in great things, in saving as in pardoning. To be glad instruments of God’s love in this imperfect world is the service to which we are called.
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It doesn't matter if an animal can reason. It matters only that it is capable of suffering and that is why I consider it my neighbor.
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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.'
Albert Schweitzer