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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.
-Albert Schweitzer
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The The Question Whether

Albert Schweitzer
...
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.

Understanding the Quote: "the the question whether i am a pessimist or an optimist, i..."

This quote by Albert Schweitzer reflects deeply on the theme of god. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under God, Faith, Hope, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Albert Schweitzer interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer is celebrated for insightful thoughts on god and faith. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
God
Faith
Hope
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Teaching
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Light
Giving
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Responsibility
Sacrifice
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Do Something Wonderful, People May Imitate It.
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America
People
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.
Animal
Compassion
Circles
A Man Is Ethical Only When Life, As Such, Is Sacred To Him.
Men
Animal
Thinking Man
What Really Matters Is That We Should All Of Us Realize That We Are Guilty Of Inhumanity. The Horror Of This Realization Should Shakes Us Out Of Our Lethargy So That We Can Direct Our Hopes And Our Intentions To The Coming Of An Era In Which War Will Have No Place.
War
Realization
Matter
We Cannot Abdicate Our Conscience To An Organization, Nor To A Government.
Government
Organization
Conscience
Ethics Cannot Be Based Upon Our Obligations Toward People, But They Are Complete And Natural Only When We Feel This Reverence For Life And The Desire To Have Compassion For And To Help All Creatures Insofar As It Is In Our Power. I Think That This Ethic Will Become More And More Recognized Because Of Its Great Naturalness And Because It Is The Foundation Of A True Humanism Toward Which We Must Strive If Our Culture Is To Become Truly Ethical.
Life
Thinking
Compassion
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.
Animal
Men
Views
The Spirit Of The Age Is Filled With The Disdain For Thinking.
Thinking
Age
Spirit
From Naive Simplicity We Arrive At More Profound Simplicity.
Profound
Simplicity
Naive
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.
Strong
Philosophical
Animal
The Ethic Of Reverence For Life Is The Ethic Of Love Widened Into Universality.
Life
Ethics
Reverence
What We Call Love Is In Its Essence Reverence For Life.
Love
Essence
Reverence For Life
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.
Health
Witch Doctors
Knowing
Man Must Cease Attributing His Problems To His Environment, And Learn Again To Exercise His Will - His Personal Responsibility In The Realm Of Faith And Morals.
Learning
Responsibility
Exercise
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.
Animal
Pet
Suffering
At That Point In Life Where Your Talent Meets The Needs Of The World, That Is Where God Wants You To Be.
Needs
World
Want
One Who Gains Strength By Overcoming Obstacles Possesses The Only Strength Which Can Overcome Adversity.
Motivational
Strength
Stress
If A Man Loses His Reverence For Any Part Of Life, He Will Lose His Reverence For All Of Life.
Life
Men
Honor
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.
Inspirational
Life
Beach
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.
Integrity
Character
Independent
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.
Nature
Philosophical
Animal
Aim For Service And Success Will Follow!
Aim
Our Age Is Bent On Trying To Make The Barren Tree Of Skepticism Fruitful By Tying The Fruits Of Truth On Its Branches.
Tree
Age
Trying
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.
Jesus
Father
Teaching
Renunciation Of Thinking Is A Declaration Of Spiritual Bankruptcy.
Spiritual
Thinking
Bankruptcy
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.
Kindness
Relax
Prejudice
You Don't Live In A World All Alone. Your Brothers Are Here Too.
Brother
Helping Others
Volunteer
The Stronger The Reverence For Natural Life, The Stronger Grows Also That For Spiritual Life.
Spiritual
Stronger
Reverence For 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.
Spiritual
Thinking
Self
Man Is A Clever Animal Who Behaves Like An Imbecile.
Clever
Fun
Animal
Life Becomes Harder For Us When We Live For Others, But It Also Becomes Richer And Happier.
Life
Grief
Bad Ass
To Work For The Common Good Is The Greatest Creed.
Careers
Community Service
Helping
Only Those Who Respect The Personality Of Others Can Be Of Real Use To Them.
Respect
Real
Personality
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.
Jesus
Honesty
Pain
By Ethical Conduct Toward All Creatures, We Enter Into A Spiritual Relationship With The Universe.
Spiritual
Nature
Animal
Reverence For Life Affords Me My Fundamental Principle Of Morality.
Motherhood
Principles
Fundamentals
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.
Progress
Debate
Strikes
All People Are Endowed With The Faculty Of Compassion, And For This Reason Can Develop The Humanitarian Spirit.
Compassion
People
Spirit
In Resigning Ourselves To Our Fate Without A Struggle, We Are Guilty Of Inhumanity.
Struggle
Fate
Guilty
Ethical Existence [is] The Highest Manifestation Of Spirituality.
Spiritual
Ethical
Existence
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.
Needs
Littles
Pay
The Thinking Man Must Oppose All Cruelties No Matter How Deeply Rooted In Tradition Or Surrounded By A Halo.
Men
Thinking
Halos
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?
Light
Long
Shining
The Tragedy Of Life Is What Dies Inside A Man While He Lives.
Inspirational
Life
Sympathy
Let Us Rejoice In The Truth, Wherever We Find Its Lamp Burning.
Lamps
Burning
Rejoice
The Interior Joy We Feel When We Have Done A Good Deed Is The Nourishment The Soul Requires.
Joy
Soul
Done
The Most Difficult Thing I Have Ever Had To Do Is Follow The Guidance I Prayed For.
Guidance
Difficult
Difficult Things
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.
Men
Hands
Color
To Me, Good Health Is More Than Just Exercise And Diet. Its Really A Point Of View And A Mental Attitude You Have About Yourself.
Attitude
Exercise
Views
Man Can No Longer Live His Life For Himself Alone. We Realize That All Life Is Valuable And That We Are United To All This Life. From This Knowledge Comes Our Spiritual Relationship To The Universe.
Inspirational
Spiritual
Men
Pain Is A More Terrible Lord Of Mankind Than Even Death Itself.
Sad
Pain
Suicidal
Think With Deep Gratitude Of Those Who Have Lighted The Flames Within Us.
Thank You
Thanksgiving
Thankful
It's Supposed To Be A Secret, But I'll Tell You Anyway. We Doctors Do Nothing. We Only Help. And Encourage The Doctor Within.
Health
Doctors
Medicine
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.
Moving
Rights
Organization
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.
Philosophical
Thinking
Animal
Reverence For Life Brings Us Into A Spiritual Relation With The World Which Is Independent Of All Knowledge Of The Universe.
Spiritual
Independent
World
Don't Let Your Hearts Grow Numb. Stay Alert. It Is Your Soul Which Matters.
Heart
Soul
Matter
Bach Is Thus A Terminal Point. Nothing Comes From Him; Everything Merely Leads To Him.
Terminal
It Is A Man's Sympathy With All Creatures That First Makes Him Truly A Man.
Inspirational
Sympathy
Men
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.
Character
People
Secret
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.
Life
Men
Thinking
No One May Shut His Eyes To Think The Pain, Which Is Therefore Not Visible To Him, Is Non-existent.
Pain
Eye
Animal
Ethics Is The Activity Of Man Directed To Secure The Inner Perfection Of His Own Personality.
Men
Perfection
Personality
It Is The Fate Of Every Truth To Be An Object Of Ridicule When It Is First Acclaimed.
Fate
Animal
Vegetarianism
Man Can Hardly Even Recognize The Devils Of His Own Creation.
Men
Mind Your Own Business
Devil
I Do Not Want To Frighten You By Telling You About The Temptations Life Will Bring. Anyone Who Is Healthy In Spirit Will Overcome Them. But There Is Something I Want You To Realize. It Does Not Matter So Much What You Do. What Matters Is Whether Your Soul Is Harmed By What You Do. If Your Soul Is Harmed, Something Irreparable Happens, The Extent Of Which You Won't Realize Until It Will Be Too Late.
What Matters
Temptation
Healthy
Example Is Leadership.
Leadership
Learning
Growth
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