69 quotes
I am life which wants to live admidst of lives that want to live.
World-view is a product of life-view, not vice versa.
Kulturphilosophie (1923)
It is the fate of every truth to be an object of ridicule when it is first acclaimed.
Kulturphilosophie (1923)
Reverence for life, veneratio vitæ, is the most direct and at the same time the profoundest achievement of my will-to-live.
Kulturphilosophie (1923)
By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.
In no other fire than that of the mysticism of reverence for life can the broken sword of idealism be forged anew.
Kulturphilosophie (1923)
Profound love demands a deep conception and out of this develops reverence for the mystery of life. It brings us close to all beings, to the poorest and smallest as well as all others.
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.
Affirmation of the world, which means affirmation of the will-to-live that manifests itself around me, is only possible if I devote myself to other life.
Kulturphilosophie (1923)
Thus each successive epoch of theology found its own thoughts in Jesus; that was, indeed, the only way in which it could make Him live. But it was not only each epoch that found its reflection in Jesus; each individual created Him in accordance with his own character. There is no historical task which so reveals a man's true self as the writing of a Life of Jesus.
The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906)
The good conscience is an invention of the devil.
Kulturphilosophie (1923)
Every world-view which fails to start from resignation in regard to knowledge is artificial and a mere fabrication, for it rests upon an inadmissible interpretation of the universe.
Kulturphilosophie (1923)
The man who has become a thinking being feels a compulsion to give every will-to-live the same reverence for life that he gives to his own. He experiences that other life in his own.
Kulturphilosophie (1923)
It does not matter so much what you do. What matters is whether your soul is harmed by what you do.
Example is not the main thing. It is the only thing. … Only as a man has simplicity can his example influence others.
Just then, in my great tiredness and discouragement, the phrase "Reverence for Life" struck me like a flash. As far as I knew, it was a phrase I had never heard nor ever read.
Not less strong than the will to truth must be the will to sincerity. Only an age, which can show the courage of sincerity, can possess truth, which works as a spiritual force within it.
Let me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and 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 : The Man and His Mind (1947)
Altogether, Jesus never behaves like a man wandering in a system of delusions. He reacts in absolutely normal fashion to what is said to Him, and to the events that concern Him. He is never out of touch with reality.
Out of My Life and Thought : An Autobiography (1933)
The thinking man must … oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. True manhood is too precious a spiritual good for us to surrender any part of it to thoughtlessness.
p. 305; also in The Animal World of Albert Schweitzer (1950)