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But Merely Accepting Authoritarian Truth, Even If That Truth Has Some Virtue, Does Not Bring Skepticism To An End. To Blindly Accept A Truth One Has Never Reflected Upon Retards The Advance Of Reason. Our World Rots In Deceit. . . . Just As A Tree Bears The Same Fruit Year After Year And At The Same Time Fruit That Is New Each Year, So Must All Permanently Valuable Ideas Be Continually Created Anew In Thought. But Our Age Pretends To Make A Sterile Tree Bear Fruit By Tying Fruits Of Truth Onto Its Branches.

-Albert Schweitzer

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But Merely Accepting Authoritarian

Albert Schweitzer

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But Merely Accepting Authoritarian Truth, Even If That Truth Has Some Virtue, Does Not Bring Skepticism To An End. To Blindly Accept A Truth One Has Never Reflected Upon Retards The Advance Of Reason. Our World Rots In Deceit. . . . Just As A Tree Bears The Same Fruit Year After Year And At The Same Time Fruit That Is New Each Year, So Must All Permanently Valuable Ideas Be Continually Created Anew In Thought. But Our Age Pretends To Make A Sterile Tree Bear Fruit By Tying Fruits Of Truth Onto Its Branches.

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Nature Compels Us To Recognize The Fact Of Mutual Dependence, Each Life Necessarily Helping The Other Lives Who Are Linked To It. In The Very Fibers Of Our Being, We Bear Within Ourselves The Fact Of The Solidarity Of Life.

Happiness Is The Only Thing That Multiplies When You Share It.

Happiness Is Nothing More Than Good Health And A Bad Memory.

Seek Always To Do Some Good, Somewhere... Even If It's A Little Thing, So Something For Those That Need Help, Something For Which You Get No Pay But The Privilege Of Doing It.

The Mistake Made By All Previous Systems Of Ethics Has Been The Failure To Recognize That Life As Such Is The Mysterious Value With Which They Have To Deal. All Spiritual Life Meets Us Within Natural Life. Reverence For Life, Therefore, Is Applied To Natural Life And Spiritual Life Alike. In The Parable Of Jesus, The Shepherd Saves Not Merely The Soul Of The Lost Sheep But The Whole Animal. The Stronger The Reverence For Natural Life, The Stronger Grows Also That For Spiritual Life.

I Must Forgive Without Noise Or Fuss.

Knowing Who You Are

To The Man Who Is Truly Ethical All Life Is Sacred, Including That Which From The Human Point Of View Seems Lower In The Scale. He Makes Distinctions Only As Each Case Comes Before Him, And Under The Pressure Of Necessity, As, For Example, When It Falls To Him To Decide Which Of Two Lives He Must Sacrifice In Order To Preserve The Other. But All Through This Series Of Decisions He Is Conscious Of Acting On Subjective Grounds And Arbitrarily, And Knows That He Bears The Responsibility For The Life Which Is Sacrificed.

It Is The Fate Of Every Truth To Be An Object Of Ridicule When It Is First Acclaimed.

We Must Never Allow The Voice Of Humanity Within Us To Be Silenced. It Is Humanity's Sympathy With All Creatures That First Makes Us Truly Human.

Those Who Experiment On Animals Should Never Be Able To Quiet Their Own Conscience By Telling Themselves That These Cruelties Have A Worthy Aim.

Jesus As A Concrete Historical Personality Remains A Stranger To Our Time, But His Spirit, Which Lies Hidden In His Words, Is Known In Simplicity, And Its Influence Is Direct.

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.

Do Not Lose Heart, Even If You Must Wait A Bit Before Finding The Right Thing. Be Prepared For Disappointment Also, But Do Not Abandon The Quest.

Even If It Is A Little Thing, Do Something For Those Who Have Need Of Help.

Creative Energy Is The Essence Of All Healing...we Physicians Do Nothing, We Only Help And Encourage The Physician Within.

Our Age Is Bent On Trying To Make The Barren Tree Of Skepticism Fruitful By Tying The Fruits Of Truth On Its Branches.

I Wanted To Be A Doctor That I Might Be Able To Work Without Having To Talk Because For Years I Had Been Giving Myself Out In Words.

A Man Does Not Have To Be An Angel In Order To Be Saint.

Life Becomes Harder For Us When We Live For Others, But It Also Becomes Richer And Happier.

You Ask Me For A Motto. Here It Is: Service.

What Has Been Presented As Christianity During These Nineteen Centuries Is Only A Beginning, Full Of Mistakes, Not Full Blown Christianity Springing From The Spirit Of Jesus.

The Greatest Thing Is To Give Thanks For Everything. He Who Has Learned This Knows What It Means To Live. He Has Penetrated The Whole Mystery Of Life: Giving Thanks For Everything.

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. The Roots Of Cruelty, Therefore, Are Not So Much Strong As Widespread. But The Time Must Come When Inhumanity Protected By Custom And Thoughtlessness Will Succumb Before Humanity Championed By Thought. Let Us Work That This Time May Come.

Don't Blame, Forgive, All Healing Is Self-healing

We Cannot Possibly Let Ourselves Get Frozen Into Regarding Everyone We Do Not Know As An Absolute Stranger.

The Doctor Of The Future Will Be Oneself.

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.

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.

Today . . . We Know That All Living Beings Who Strive To Maintain Life And Who Long To Be Spared Pain - All Living Beings On Earth - Are Our Neighbors.

Today It Is Considered As Exaggeration To Proclaim Constant Respect For Every Form Of Life As Being The Serious Demand Of A Rational Ethic. But The Time Is Coming When People Will Be Amazed That The Human Race Existed So Long Before It Recognized That Thoughtless Injury To Life Is Incompatible With Real Ethics. Ethics Is In Its Unqualified Form Extended Responsibility To Everything That Has Life.

Thought Cannot Avoid The Ethical Or Reverence And Love For All Life. It Will Abandon The Old Confined Systems Of Ethics And Be Forced To Recognize The Ethics That Knows No Bounds. But On The Other Hand, Those Who Believe In Love For All Creation Must Realize Clearly The Difficulties Involved In The Problem Of A Boundless Ethic And Must Be Resolved Not To Veil From Humankind The Conflicts Which This Ethic Will Involve Us, But Allow Us Really To Experience Them. To Think Out In Every Implication The Ethic Of Love For All Creation This Is The Difficult Task Which Confronts Our Age.

Inspirational Love

Knowing All Truth Is Less Than Doing A Little Bit Of Good.

As Soon As Man Does Not Take His Existence For Granted, But Beholds It As Something Unfathomably Mysterious, Thought Begins.

My Life Carries Its Own Meaning In Itself.

Meaning Of Life

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.

From Naive Simplicity We Arrive At More Profound Simplicity.

No One May Shut His Eyes To Think The Pain, Which Is Therefore Not Visible To Him, Is Non-existent.

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.

Thought Is The Strongest Thing We Have. Work Done By True And Profound Thought - That Is A Real Force.

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 Future Of Civilization Depends On Our Overcoming The Meaninglessness And Hopelessness Which Characterize The Thoughts And Convictions Of Men Today, And Reaching A State Of Fresh Hope And Fresh Determination.

I Decided That I Would Make My Life My Argument.

Set A Great Example. Someone May Imitate It.

The Thinking Man Must Oppose All Cruelties No Matter How Deeply Rooted In Tradition Or Surrounded By A Halo.

Man Has Lost The Capacity To Foresee And To Forestall. He Will End By Destroying The Earth.

A Heavy Guilt Rests Upon Us For What The Whites Of All Nations Have Done To The Colored Peoples. When We Do Good To Them, It Is Not Benevolence--it Is Atonement.

Ideals Are Thoughts. So Long As They Exist Merely As Thoughts, The Power In Them Remains Ineffective.

The Spirit Of The Age Is Filled With The Disdain For Thinking.

The Disastrous Feature Of Our Civilization Is That It Is Far More Developed Materially Than Spiritually. Its Balance Is Disturbed.

Each Act Of Unfaithfulness Toward Our Inner Being Is A Blot On Our Souls. If We Continue To Be Unfaithful, Our Souls Are Eventually Torn Apart And We Slowly Bleed To Death.

The Great Secret Of Success Is To Go Through Life As A Person Who Never Gets Used Up. That Is Possible For Those Who Never Argue And Strive With People And Facts, But In All Experience Retires Upon Themselves, And Look For The Ultimate Cause Of Things In Themselves.

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Mysticism Occurs Whenever A Human Being Sees The Separation Between The Natural And The Supernatural, Between The Temporal And The Eternal, As Overcome.

Hear Our Humble Prayer, O God. Make Us, Ourselves, To Be True Friends To The Animals.

The Witch Doctor Succeeds For The Same Reason All The Rest Of Us Succeed. Each Patient Carries His Or Her Own Doctor Inside Him Or Her. They Come To Us Not Knowing That Truth. We Are At Our Best When We Give The Doctor Who Resides Within Each Patient A Chance To Go To Work.

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Whatever You Have Received More Than Others-in Health, In Talents, In Ability, In Success, In A Pleasant Childhood, In Harmonious Conditions Of Home Life-all This You Must Not Take To Yourself As A Matter Of Course. In Gratitude For Your Good Fortune, You Must Remember In Return Some Sacrifice Of Your Own Life For Another Life.

He Who Does Not Reflect His Life Back To God In Gratitude Does Not Know Himself.

The Fundamental Rights Of [humanity] Are, First: The Right Of Habitation; Second, The Right To Move Freely; Third, The Right To The Soil And Subsoil, And To The Use Of It; Fourth, The Right Of Freedom Of Labor And Of Exchange; Fifth, The Right To Justice; Sixth, The Right To Live Within A Natural National Organization; And Seventh, The Right To Education.

Be Faithful To Your Love And You Mill Be Recompensed Beyond Measure.

Every Start On An Untrodden Path Is A Venture Which Only In Unusual Circumstances Looks Sensible And Likely To Succeed.

Jesus Means Something To Our World Because A Mighty Spiritual Force Streams Forth From Him And Flows Through Our Being Also. This Fact Can Neither Be Shaken Nor Confirmed By Any Historical Discovery. It Is The Solid Foundation Of Christianity.

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It Is Not Always Granted To The Sower To See The Harvest.

Once A Man Recognizes Himself As A Being Surrounded By Other Beings In This World And Begins To Respect His Life And Take It To The Highest Value, He Becomes A Thinking Being. Then He Values Other Lives And Experiences Them As Part Of His Own Life. With That, His Goal Is To Help Everyone Take Their Life To The Highest Value; Anything Which Limits Or Destroys A Life Is Evil. That Is Morality. That Is How Men Are Related To The World Around Them.

Preservation Of Life Is The Only True Joy.

Preservation Of Life

An Optimist Is A Person Who Sees A Green Light Everywhere, While A Pessimist Sees Only The Red Stoplight... The Truly Wise Person Is Colorblind.

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 New Public Opinion Must Be Created Privately And Unobtrusively. The Existing One Is Maintained By The Press, By Propaganda, By Organization, And By Financial Influences Which Are At Its Disposal. The Unnatural Way Of Spreading Ideas Must Be Opposed By The Natural One, Which Goes From Man To Man And Relies Solely On The Truth Of The Thoughts And The Hearer's Receptiveness Of New Truth.

Civilization Can Only Revive When There Shall Come Into Being In A Number Of Individuals A New Tone Of Mind, Independent Of The Prevalent One Among The Crowds, 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. Only An Ethical Movement Can Rescue Us From Barbarism, And The Ethical Comes Into Existence Only In Individuals.

Never For A Moment Do We Lay Aside Our Mistrust Of The Ideals Established By Society, And Of The Convictions Which Are Kept By It In Circulation. We Always Know That Society Is Full Of Folly And Will Deceive Us In The Matter Of Humanity. ... Humanity Meaning Consideration For The Existence And The Happiness Of Individual Human Beings.

For Us The Great Men Are Not Those Who Solved The Problems, But Those Whodiscovered Them.

The Gratitude That We Encounter Helps Us Believe In The Goodness Of The World, And Strengthens Us Thereby To Do What's Good.

Your Soul Suffers If You Live Superficially.

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.

Imperfect World

All Art Speaks In Signs And Symbols. No One Can Explain How It Happens That The Artist Can Waken To Life In Us The Existence That He Has Seen And Lives Through. No Artistic Speech Is The Adequate Expression Of What It Represents; Its Vital Force Comes From What Is Unspoken In It.

Reincarnation Contains A Most Comforting Explanation Of Reality By Means Of Which Indian Thought Surmounts Difficulties Which Baffle The Thinkers Of Europe.

Reverence For Life . . . Does Not Allow The Scholar To Live For His Science Alone, Even If He Is Very Useful . . . The Artist To Exist Only For His Art, Even If He Gives Inspiration To Many. . . . It Refuses To Let The Business Man Imagine That He Fulfills All Legitimate Demands In The Course Of His Business Activities. It Demands From All That They Should Sacrifice A Portion Of Their Own Lives For Others.

We Must All Die. But That I Can Save Him From Days Of Torture, That Is What I Feel As My Great And Ever New Privilege. Pain Is A More Terrible Lord Of Mankind Than Even Death Itself.

Aim For Service And Success Will Follow!

To Affirm Life Is To Deepen, To Make More Inward, And To Exalt The Will-to-life. At The Same Time 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 As His Own. He Accepts As Being Good: To Preserve Life, To Raise To Its Highest Value Life Which Is Capable Of Development; And As Being Evil: To Destroy Life, To Injure Life, To Repress Life Which Is Capable Of Development. This Is The Absolute, Fundamental Principle Of The Moral, And It Is A Necessity Of Thought.

If A Man Loses His Reverence For Any Part Of Life, He Will Lose His Reverence For All Of Life.

Rational Thinking Which Is Free From Assumptions Ends Therefore In Mysticism. To Relate Oneself In The Spirit Of Reverence For Life To The Multiform Manifestations Of The Will-to-live Which Together Constitute The World Is Ethical Mysticism. All Profound World-view Is Mysticism, The Essence Of Which Is Just This: That Out Of My Unsophisticated And Naïve Existence In The World There Comes, As A Result Of Thought About Self And The World, Spiritual Self-devotion To The Mysterious Infinite Will Which Is Continuously Manifested In The Universe.

You Must Not Expect Anything From Others. It's You, Of Yourself, Of Whom You Must Ask A Lot. Only From Oneself Has One The Right To Ask Everything And Anything. This Way It's Up To You - Your Own Choices - What You Get From Others Remains A Present, A Gift.

I Don't Know What Your Destiny Will Be, But 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.

Open Your Eyes And Look For Some Man, Or Some Work For The Sake Of Men, Which Needs A Little Time, A Little Friendship, A Little Sympathy, A Little Sociability, A Little Human Toil....it Is Needed In Every Nook And Corner. Therefore Search And See If There Is Not Some Place Where You May Invest Your Humanity.

Who Shall Enumerate The Many Ways In Which That Costly Piece Of Fixed Capital, A Human Being , May Be Employed! More Of Him Is Wanted Everywhere! Hunt, Then, For Some Situation In Which Your Humanity May Be Used.

But The Others, Those Who Tried To Bring Jesus To Life At The Call Of Love, Found It A Cruel Task To Be Honest. The Critical Study Of The Life Of Jesus Has Been For Theology A School Of Honesty. The World Had Never Seen Before, And Will Never See Again, A Struggle For Truth So Full Of Pain And Renunciation As That Of Which The Lives Of Jesus Of The Last Hundred Years Contain The Cryptic Record.

The Last Fact Which Knowledge Can Discover Is That The World Is A Manifestation, And In Every Way A Puzzling Manifestation, Of The Universal Will To Live.

As We Acquire Knowledge, Things Do Not Become More Comprehensible, But More Mysterious.

Where Possible Paul Avoids Quoting The Teaching Of Jesus, In Fact Even Mentioning It. If We Had To Rely On Paul, We Should Not Know That Jesus Taught In Parables, Had Delivered The Sermon On The Mount, And Had Taught His Disciples The 'our Father.' Even Where They Are Specially Relevant, Paul Passes Over The Words Of The Lord.

The City Of Truth Cannot Be Built On The Swampy Ground Of Skepticism.

Love ... Is A Living Reality.

Ethics Is The Activity Of Man Directed To Secure The Inner Perfection Of His Own Personality.

No Ray Of Sunlight Is Ever Lost, But The Green Which It Awakes Into Existence Needs Time To Sprout, And It Is Not Always Granted To The Sower To See The Harvest. All Work That Is Worth Anything Is Done In Faith.

God Much Are The Truly Wealthy. So Our Inner Happiness Depends Not On What We Experience But On The Degree Of Our Gratitude To God, Gratitude — The Secret Of Life.

Not Only Is Example The Best Way To Teach, It Is The Only Way.

Reverence For Life Affords Me My Fundamental Principle Of Morality.

All Work That Is Worth Anything Is Done In Faith.

No Man Need Fear Death, He Need Fear Only That He May Die Without Having Known His Greatest Power: The Power Of His Free Will To Give His Life For Others

The Quiet Conscience Is An Invention Of The Devil.

Love . . . Includes Fellowship In Suffering, In Joy And In Effort.

Ethics Is Nothing Else Than Reverence For Life.

Reverence For Life

Man Is A Clever Animal Who Behaves Like An Imbecile.

My Life Is My Argument.

Wherever You Turn, You Can Find Someone Who Needs You. Even If It Is A Little Thing, Do Something For Which There Is No Pay But The Privilege Of Doing It. Remember, You Don't Live In A World All Of Your Own

Truth Has No Special Time Of Its Own. Its Hour Is Now - Always.

Ethics, Too, Are Nothing But Reverence For Life. This Is What Gives Me The Fundamental Principle Of Morality, Namely, That Good Consists In Maintaining, Promoting, And Enhancing Life, And That Destroying, Injuring, And Limiting Life Are Evil.

Inspirational Life

Reverence For Life Brings Us Into A Spiritual Relation With The World Which Is Independent Of All Knowledge Of The Universe.

Pablo Casals Is A Great Musician In All He Does: A Cellist Without Equal, And Extraordinary Conductor And Composer With Something To Say. I Have Been Profoundly Impressed By All I Have Heard Of His Work, But He Is A Musician Of This Stature Because He Is Also A Great Man.

The Only Thing Of Importance, When We Depart, Will Be The Traces Of Love We Have Left Behind.

Anyone Who Has Accustomed Himself To Regard The Life Of Any Living Creature As Worthless Is In Danger Of Arriving Also At The Idea Of Worthless Human Lives.

For Animals That Are Overworked, Underfed, And Cruelly Treated; For All Wistful Creatures In Captivity That Beat Their Wings Against Bars; For Any That Are Hunted Or Lost Or Deserted Or Frightened Or Hungry; For All That Must Be Put To Death...and For Those Who Deal With Them We Ask A Heart Of Compassion And Gentle Hands And Kindly Words.

Never Say There Is Nothing Beautiful In The World Anymore. There Is Always Something To Make You Wonder In The Shape Of A Tree, The Trembling Of A Leaf.

Constant Kindness Can Accomplish Much. As The Sun Makes Ice Melt, Kindness Causes Misunderstanding, Mistrust, And Hostility To Evaporate.

Good Is That Which Promotes Life, Evil Is That Which Destroys Life

In The Hopes Of Reaching The Moon Men Fail To See The Flowers That Blossom At Their Feet.

We Need A Boundless Ethic, One Which Will Include The Animals, Too. Until We Extend The Circle Of His Compassions To All Living Things, We Will Not Find Peace.

When People Have Light In Themselves, It Will Shine Out From Them. Then We Get To Know Each Other As We Walk Together In The Darkness, Without Needing To Pass Our Hands Over Each Other's Faces, Or To Intrude Into Each Other's Hearts.

Example Is Not The Main Thing In Influencing Others. It Is The Only Thing.

A Man Is Ethical Only When Life, As Such, Is Sacred To Him.

Soldiers' Graves Are The Greatest Preachers Of Peace.

Let Me Give You A Definition Of Ethics: It Is Good To Maintain And Further Life It Is Bad To Damage And Destroy Life.

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.

The The Question Whether I Am A Pessimist Or An Optimist, I Answer That My Knowledge Is Pessimistic, But My Willing And Hope Are Optimistic.

It Is Only Through Love That We Can Attain To Communion With God. All Living Knowledge Of God Rests Upon This Foundation: That We Experience Him In Our Lives As Will-to-love.

Knowledge Of God

Don't Stop To Ask Whether The Animal Or Plant You Meet Deserves Your Sympathy, Or How Much It Feels, Or Even Whether It Can Feel At All: Respect It And Consider All Life Sacred.

We Ought All To Make An Effort To Act On Our First Thoughts And Let Our Unspoken Gratitude Find Expression. Then There Will Be More Sunshine In The World, And More Power To Work For What Is Good.

Does My Behavior In Respect Of Love Affect Nothing? That Is Because There Is Not Enough Love In Me.

We Cannot Abdicate Our Conscience To An Organization, Nor To A Government. 'am I My Brother's Keeper?' Most Certainly I Am! I Cannot Escape My Responsibility By Saying The State Will Do All That Is Necessary. It Is A Tragedy That Nowadays So Many Think And Feel Otherwise.

Success Is Not The Key To Happiness. Happiness Is The Key To Success. If You Love What You Are Doing, You Will Be Successful.

That's My Private Ant. You're Liable To Break Its Legs.

Think Occasionally Of The Suffering Of Which You Spare Yourself The Sight.

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.'

I Am Life Which Wants To Live Admidst Of Lives That Want To Live.

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.

We All Know How Important Love Is, Yet How Often Is It Really Emoted Or Exhibited? What So Many Sick People In This World Suffer From-loneliness, Boredom And Fear-can't Be Cured With A Pill.

The Demands Of Jesus Are Difficult Just Because They Require Us To Do Something Extraordinary. At The Same Time He Asks Us To Regard These As Something Usual, Ordinary.

The Most Difficult Thing I Have Ever Had To Do Is Follow The Guidance I Prayed For.

Difficult Things

The Awareness That We Are All Human Beings Together Has Become Lost In War And Through Politics.

It Is A Man's Sympathy With All Creatures That First Makes Him Truly A Man.

We Are United With All Life That Is In Nature. Man Can No Longer Live His Life For Himself Alone.

Affirmation Of Life Is The Spiritual Act By Which Man Ceases To Live Unreflectively And Begins To Devote Himself To His Life With Reverence In Order To Raise It To Its True Value. To Affirm Life Is To Deepen, To Make More Inward, And To Exalt The Will.

We Should All Be Thankful For Those People Who Rekindle The Inner Spirit.

At That Point In Life Where Your Talent Meets The Needs Of The World, That Is Where God Wants You To Be.

By Respect For Life We Become Religious In A Way That Is Elementary, Profound And Alive.

When Man Learns To Respect Even The Smallest Being Of Creation...nobody Has To Teach Him To Love His Fellow Man. Compassion For Animals Is Intimately Connected With Goodness Of Character, And It May Be Confidently Asserted That He Who Is Cruel To Animals Cannot Be A Good Man.

The African Is My Brother But He Is My Younger Brother By Several Centuries.

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.

Bach Is Thus A Terminal Point. Nothing Comes From Him; Everything Merely Leads To Him.

Every Person I Have Known Who Has Been Truly Happy Has Learned How To Serve Others.

Our Degeneration, When It Is Traced Back To Its Origin In Our View Of The World Really Consists In The Fact That True Optimism Has Vanished Unperceived From Our Midst.

Who Can Describe The Injustice And The Cruelties That In The Course Of Centuries The Peoples Of Color Of The World Have Suffered At The Hands Of Europeans?... We And Our Civilization Are Burdened, Really, With A Great Debt. We Are Not Free To Confer Benefits On These Men, Or Not, As We Please; It Is Our Duty. Anything We Give Them Is Not Benevolence But Atonement.

Example Is Leadership.

The Result Of The Voyage Does Not Depend On The Speed Of The Ship, But On Whether Or Not It Keeps A True Course.

Renunciation Of Thinking Is A Declaration Of Spiritual Bankruptcy.

In Resigning Ourselves To Our Fate Without A Struggle, We Are Guilty Of Inhumanity.

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.

Joy, Sorrow, Tears, Lamentation, Laughter -- To All These Music Gives Voice, But In Such A Way That We Are Transported From The World Of Unrest To A World Of Peace, And See Reality In A New Way, As If We Were Sitting By A Mountain Lake And Contemplating Hills And Woods And Clouds In The Tranquil And Fathomless Water.

If There Is Anything I Have Learned About Men And Women, It Is That There Is A Deeper Spirit Of Altruism Than Is Ever Evident. Just As The Rivers We See Are Minor Compared To The Underground Streams, So, Too, The Idealism That Is Visible Is Minor Compared To What People Carry In Their Hearts Unreleased Or Scarcely Released.

Any Religion Or Philosophy Which Is Not Based On A Respect For Life Is Not A True Religion Or Philosophy.

It Is Not Enough Merely To Exist. It's Not Enough To Say, "i'm Earning Enough To Support My Family. I Do My Work Well. I'm A Good Father, Husband, Churchgoer." That's All Very Well. But You Must Do Something More. 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 Need 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.

The Only Way Out Of Today's Misery Is For People To Become Worthy Of Each Other's Trust.

He Comes To Us As One Unknown, Without A Name, As Of Old, By The Lakeside, He Came To Those Men Who Knew Him Not. He Speaks To Us The Same Words: "follow Thou Me!" And Sets Us To The Tasks Which He Has To Fulfill For Our Time. He Commands. And To Those Who Obey Him, Whether They Be Wise Or Simple, He Will Reveal Himself In The Toils, The Conflicts, The Sufferings Which They Shall Pass Through In His Fellowship, And, As An Ineffable Mystery, They Shall Learn In Their Own Experience Who He Is.

The Thinking Man Must Oppose All Cruel Customs No Matter How Deeply Rooted In Tradition Or Surrounded By A Halo. We Need A Boundless Ethics Which Will Include The Animals Also. My Life Is Full Of Meaning To Me. The Life Around Me Must Be Full Of Significance To It. If I Want Others To Respect My Life, Then I Must Respect The Other Life I See However Strange It May Be To Mine. Ethics In Our Western World Has Hitherto Been Largely Limited To The Relation Of Man To Man... But That Is A Limited Ethics.

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?

Thinking About Death... Produces Love For Life. When We Are Familiar With Death, We Accept Each Week, Each Day, As A Gift. Only If We Are Able Thus To Accept Life Bit By Bit Does It Become Precious.

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.

Cute Friendship

The Great Secret Of Success Is To Go Through Life As A Man Who Never Gets Used To Failing.

There Slowly Grew Up In Me An Unshakable Conviction That We Have No Right To Inflict Suffering And Death On Another Living Creature, Unless There Is Some Unavoidable Necessity For It.

Suffering And Death

If You Truly Desire Happiness, Seek And Learn How To Serve.

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.

There Is Much Coldness Among Men Because We Do Not Dare To Be As Cordial As We Really Are.

At 20 Everyone Has The Face That God Gave Them, At 40 The Face That Life Gave Them, And At 60 The Face They Earned.

In The Past We Have Tried To Make A Distinction Between Animals Which We Acknowledge Have Some Value And Other Which, Having None, Can Be Liquidated When We Wish. This Standard Must Be Abandoned. Everything That Lives Has Value Simply As A Living Thing, As One Of The Manifestations Of The Mystery That Is Life.

If You Love What You Are Doing, You Will Be Successful.

A Thinking Man Feels Compelled To Approach All Life With The Same Reverence He Has For His Own.

The Harvested Fields Bathed In The Autumn Mist Speak Of God And His Goodness Far More Vividly Than Any Human Lips.

Any Profound View Of The World Is Mysticism. It Has, Of Course, To Deal With Life And The World, Both Of Which Are Nonrational Entities.

Reverence For Life Is The Highest Court Of Appeal.

Constant Kindness Can Accomplish Much.

One Who Gains Strength By Overcoming Obstacles Possesses The Only Strength Which Can Overcome Adversity.

Only Those Who Respect The Personality Of Others Can Be Of Real Use To Them.

I Always Think That We Live, Spiritually, By What Others Have Given Us In The Significant Hours Of Our Life. These Significant Hours Do Not Announce Themselves As Coming, But Arrive Unexpected.

There Is Within Each Of Us A Modulation, An Inner Exaltation, Which Lifts Us Above The Buffetings With Which Events Assail Us. Likewise, It Lifts Us Above Dependence Upon The Gifts Of Events For Our Joy.

Ethics Has Not Only To Do With Mankind But With The Animal Creation As Well. This Is Witnessed In The Purpose Of St. Francis Of Assisi. Thus We Shall Arrive That Ethics Is Reverence For All Life. This Is The Ethic Of Love Widened Universally. It Is The Ethic Of Jesus Now Recognized As A Necessity Of Thought...only A Universal Ethic Which Embraces Every Living Creature Can Put Us In Touch With The Universe And The Will Which Is There Manifest.

To The Truly Ethical Man, All Of Life Is Sacred, Including Forms Of Life That From The Human Point Of View May Seem Lower Than Ours.

The Tragedy Of Life Is What Dies Inside A Man While He Lives.

Awakening Of Western Thought Will Not Be Complete Until That Thought Steps Outside Itself And Comes To An Understanding With The Search For A World-view As This Manifests Itself In The Thought Of Mankind As A Whole.

Reverence For Life, Veneratio Vitæ, Is The Most Direct And At The Same Time The Profoundest Achievement Of My Will-to-live.

Reverence For Life

When We Observe Contemporary Society One Thing Strikes Us. We Debate But Make No Progress. Why? Because As Peoples We Do Not Yet Trust Each Other.

True Philosophy Must Start From The Most Immediate And Comprehensive Fact Of Consciousness: "i Am Life That Wants To Live, In The Midst Of Life That Wants To Live."

We Are All So Much Together, But We Are All Dying Of Loneliness.

To Work For The Common Good Is The Greatest Creed.

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The Willow Which Bends To The Tempest, Often Escapes Better Than The Oak Which Resists It; And So In Great Calamities, It Sometimes Happens That Light And Frivolous Spirits Recover Their Elasticity And Presence Of Mind Sooner Than Those Of A Loftier Character.

Until He Extends His Circle Of Compassion To Include All Living Things, Man Will Not Himself Find Peace.

Only An Ethical Movement Can Rescue Us From Barbarism, And The Ethical Comes Into Existence Only In Individuals.

The Purpose Of Human Life Is To Serve, And To Show Compassion And The Will To Help Others.

I Can Do No Other Than Be Reverent Before Everything That Is Called Life. I Can Do No Other Than To Have Compassion For All That Is Called Life. That Is The Beginning And The Foundation Of All Ethics.

Reverence For Life

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.

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Alistair Maclean

Ernest Shackleton

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