478 Quotes by Albert Schweitzer

Because I have confidence in the power of truths and of spirit, I believe in the future of mankind.- The Philosophy of Civilization.

I have given up the ambition to be a great scholar. I want to be more- simply a human. . . . We are not true humans, but beings who live by a civilization inherited from the past, that keeps us hostage, that confines us. No freedom of movement. Nothing. Everything in us is killed by our calculations for our future, by our social position and cast. You see, I am not happy-yet I am happy. I suffer, but that is part of life. I live, I don't care about my existence, and that is the beginning of wisdom.

The disastrous feature of our civilization is that it is far more developed materially than spiritually. Its balance is disturbed.

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

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.

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.

Reverence for Life Revisited: Albert Schweitzer's Relevance Today.

It's not enough merely to exist. Every man has to seek in his own way to make his own self more noble and to relize his own true worth.

Do something good and someone might imitate it.