Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Albert Schweitzer (French Theologian)

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) was an Alsatian-German religious philosopher, musicologist, and medical missionary in Africa. He devoted the first thirty years of his life to learning and music, and the rest to the service of others. He was awarded the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work.

Born in Kaysersberg, Alsace, now in France, but then under German rule, Schweitzer studied the history of the organ and its construction. He produced his most noteworthy writings on music between 1905 and 1913, while also a practicing theologian and working as a lecturer at Strasbourg.

Schweitzer was an authority on the German composer Johann Sebastian Bach and a noted performer of Bach’s organ music. He published an interpretation of Bach’s music in J. S. Bach, Le Musicien-Poète (1905; J.S. Bach, the Poet Musician.)

Schweitzer’s main contribution to theology was his book Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (1906; The Quest for the Historical Jesus,) which emphasized the significance of understanding Jesus within the context of the Jewish apocalyptic philosophy of his day. His other philosophical works include Kant’s Philosophy of Religion (1899,) Philosophy of Civilization (1923,) and Aus Mein em Leben und Denken (1931; Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography.)

In 1904, Schweitzer chanced upon an article in the Paris Missionary Society’s paper calling for doctors in Africa. Nine years later, he qualified as a physician with a specialty in surgery and tropical diseases, and went as a missionary to Lambaréné in French Equatorial Africa, now Gabon. There he established the Schweitzer Hospital and lived there for the rest of his life, providing extraordinary medical care for the natives.

Schweitzer’s later works include Afrikanische Geschichten (1936; From My African Notebook,) and Reverence for Life (tr. 1969.) The phrase “Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben” (“reverence for life”) expressed Schweitzer’spersonal philosophy—that “no person must ever harm or destroy life unless absolutely necessary.”

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Albert Schweitzer

Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Helping

Revenge… is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Revenge

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Animals

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Giving, Goodwill, Living Well, Helpfulness, Service, Happiness, Kindness

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Light, Kind, Time, Service, Thankfulness, Kindness

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now—always.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Truth

In influencing other people, what you do is not the only thing, it’s everything.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: People

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes the ice melt, kindness causes misunderstandings, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
—Albert Schweitzer

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Compassion

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.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Gratitude

Let me give you the definition of ethics: it is good to maintain life and to further life. It is bad to damage and destroy life. And this ethic, profound and universal, has the significance of a religion. It is religion.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Evil, Ethics

Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. Even if it’s a little thing; do something for those who have need of a man’s help, something for which you get no pay but privilege of doing it. For remember, you don’t live in a world all your own. Your brothers live here, too.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Goodness

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.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Kindness

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be a saint.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Angels

Example is leadership.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Kindness, Example, Virtue, Goodness, Action, Excellence, Leadership

Civilization can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone of mind independent of the one prevalent among the crowd and in opposition to it, a tone of mind which will gradually win influence over the collective one, and in the end determine its character. It is only an ethical movement which can rescue us from the slough of barbarism, and the ethical comes into existence only in individuals.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Civilization

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.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Life

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Adversity

The purpose of human life is to serve and show compassion and the will to help others.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Kindness, Compassion

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.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Ethics

You must give some time to your fellow man. Even if it’s a little thing, do something for those who have of help, something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. For remember, you don’t live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here, too.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Giving, Service, Kindness

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Ethics

Man has become a superman … because he not only disposes of innate, physical forces, but because he is in command … of latent forces in nature and because he can put them to his service…. But the essential fact we must surely all feel in our hearts … is that we are becoming inhuman in proportion as we become supermen.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Man

Just as white light consists of colored rays, so reverence for life contains all the components of ethics: love, kindliness, sympathy, empathy, peacefulness and power to forgive.
—Albert Schweitzer

Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Foresight

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. It is an uncomfortable doctrine which the true ethics whisper into my ear. You are happy, they say; therefore you are called upon to give much.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Living, Life

Your life is something opaque, not transparent, as long as you look at it in an ordinary human way. But if you hold it up against the light of God’s goodness, it shines and turns transparent, radiant and bright. And then you ask yourself in amazement: Is this really my own life I see before me?
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Light

The thinking man 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, even the lowliest creature; to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Guilt

Example is not the main thing in influencing others—it’s the only thing.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Role models, Example, Leadership, Inspiration

As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious.
—Albert Schweitzer
Topics: Learning, Knowledge

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