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There Is Nothing More Negative Than The Result Of The Critical Study Of The Life Of Jesus. The Jesus Of Nazareth Who Came Forward Publicly As The Messiah, Who Preached The Kingdom Of God, Who Founded The Kingdom Of Heaven Upon Earth, And Died To Give His Work Its Final Consecration, Never Had Any Existence. He Is A Figure Designed By Rationalism, Endowed With Life By Liberalism, And Clothed By Modern Theology In An Historical Garb.

-Albert Schweitzer

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There Is Nothing More

Albert Schweitzer

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There Is Nothing More Negative Than The Result Of The Critical Study Of The Life Of Jesus. The Jesus Of Nazareth Who Came Forward Publicly As The Messiah, Who Preached The Kingdom Of God, Who Founded The Kingdom Of Heaven Upon Earth, And Died To Give His Work Its Final Consecration, Never Had Any Existence. He Is A Figure Designed By Rationalism, Endowed With Life By Liberalism, And Clothed By Modern Theology In An Historical Garb.

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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.

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.

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 On It. A Strength Which Becomes Clearer And Stronger Through Experiences Of Such Obstacles Is The Only Strength That Can Conquer Them. Resistance Is Only A Waste Of Strength.

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

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.

I See In Him (dr. Max Gerson) One Of The Most Eminent Medical Geniuses In The History Of Medicine...he Was Greatly Impeded By Adverse Political Conditions.

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.

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

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.

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.

Therapy Is The Boat Across The River, But Most Don't Want To Get Off. Don't Blame, Forgive, All Healing Is Self-healing

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

To Educate Yourself For The Feeling Of Gratitude Means To Take Nothing For Granted, But To Always Seek Out And Value The Kindness That Stands Behind The Action. Nothing That Is Done For You Is A Matter Of Course. Everything Originates In A Will For The Good, Which Is Directed At You. Train Yourself Never To Put Off The Word Or Action For The Expression Of Gratitude.

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.

Man Is A Clever Animal Who Behaves Like An Imbecile.

The Great Fault Of All Ethics Hitherto Has Been That They Believed Themselves To Have To Deal Only With The Relations Of Man To Man. In Reality, However, The Question Is What Is His Attitude To The World And All Life That Comes Within His Reach.

Ethics Is Nothing Else Than Reverence For Life.

Reverence For Life

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

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.

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.

What Does Reverence For Life Say Abut The Relations Between [humanity] And The Animal World? Whenever I Injury Any Kind Of Life I Must Be Quite Certain That It Is Necessary. I Must Never Go Beyond The Unavoidable, Not Even In Apparently Insignificant Things. The Farmer Who Has Mowed Down A Thousand Flowers In His Meadow In Order To Feed His Cows Must Be Careful On His Way Home Not To Strike The Head Off A Single Flower By The Side Of The Road In Idle Amusement, For He Thereby Infringes On The Law Of Life Without Being Under The Pressure Of Necessity.

One Person Can And Does Make A Difference.

Making A Difference

For Those Who Sincerely Seek The Truth Should Not Fear The Outcome.

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.

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

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.

Jesus No Doubt Fits His Teaching Into The Late-jewish Messianic Dogma. But He Does Not Think Dogmatically. He Formulates No Doctrine. He Is Far From Judging Any Man's Belief By Reference To Any Standard Of Dogmatic Correctness. Nowhere Does He Demand Of His Hearers That They Shall Sacrifice Thinking To Believing.

I Have Always Held Firmly To The Thought That Each One Of Us Can Do A Little To Bring Some Portion Of Misery To An End.

Wherever A Man Turns He Can Find Someone Who Needs Him.

Do Not Let Sunday Be Taken From You. If Your Soul Has No Sunday, It Becomes An Orphan.

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.

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

I Do Not Know What Your Destiny May Be, But I Do Know This, That Not One Of You Will Find The Happiness That Each Of You Is Seeking Until You Have First Sought And Found A Way In Which To Unselfishly Serve Others.

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.

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

Let Us Rejoice In The Truth, Wherever We Find Its Lamp Burning.

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.

There Are Two Means Of Refuge From The Miseries Of Life: Music And Cats.

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.

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

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.

We Are Compelled By The Commandment Of Love Contained In Our Hearts And Thought, And Proclaimed By Jesus, To Give Rein To Our Natural Sympathy For Animals. We Are Also Compelled To Help Them And Spare Them Suffering.

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

The Quiet Conscience Is An Invention Of The Devil.

In The Same Way As The Tree Bears The Same Fruit Year After Year, But Each Time New Fruit, All Lastingly Valuable Ideas In Thinking Must Always Be Reborn.

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.

The True Worth Of A Man Is Not To Be Found In Man Himself, But In The Colours And Textures That Come Alive In 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.

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

The Stronger The Reverence For Natural Life, The Stronger Grows Also That For Spiritual Life.

Reverence For Life

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.

Think With Deep Gratitude Of Those Who Have Lighted The Flames Within Us.

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

All People Are Endowed With The Faculty Of Compassion, And For This Reason Can Develop The Humanitarian Spirit.

Only Through Love Can We Obtain Communion With God.

Communion With God

Reverence For Life Is The Highest Court Of Appeal.

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

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.

I Decided That I Would Make My Life My Argument.

Cold Completely Introspective Logic Places A Philosopher On The Road To The Abstract. Out Of This Empty, Artificial Act Of Thinking There Can Result, Of Course, Nothing Which Bears On The Relation Of Man To Himself, And To The Universe.

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.

My Life Carries Its Own Meaning In Itself.

Meaning Of Life

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

The Elemental Fact, Present In Our Consciousness Every Moment Of Our Existence, Is: I Am Life That Wills To Live, In The Midst Of Life That Wills To Live.... The Essence Of The Humane Spirit Is: Preserve Life, Promote Life, Help Life To Achieve Its Highest Destiny. The Essence Of Evil Is: Destroy Life, Harm Life, Hamper The Development Of Life

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

Grow Into Your Ideals So That Life Cannot Rob You Of Them.

Train Yourself Never To Put Off The Word Or Action For The Expression Of Gratitude.

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.

Everything Deep Is Also Simple And Can Be Reproduced Simply As Long As Its Reference To The Whole Truth Is Maintained. But What Matters Is Not What Is Witty But What Is True.

Long Distance Relationship

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

Sincerity Is The Foundation Of The Spiritual Life.

It Seemed Incredible To Me, That Physical Courage Should Be So Commonplace And Revered, While Moral Courage . . . Is So Rare And Despised.

Joy, Sorrow, Tears, Lamentation, Laughter -- To All These Music Gives Voice

Soldiers' Graves Are The Greatest Preachers Of Peace.

Where Principles And Heart Stand In Conflict With Each Other, Let Us Make The Law Of The Spirit Free From The Law Of Principles.

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.

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

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

Set A Great Example. Someone May Imitate It.

I Must Forgive Without Noise Or Fuss.

Knowing Who You Are

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.

We Need A Boundless Ethics Which Will Include Animals Also.

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.

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.'

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.

In Everyone's Life, At Some Time, Our Inner Fire Goes Out. It Is Then Burst Into Flame By An Encounter With Another Human Being. We Should All Be Thankful For Those People Who Rekindle The Inner Spirit.

Example Is Leadership.

Do Something Wonderful, People May Imitate It.

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

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

The Ethic Of Reverence For Life Is The Ethic Of Love Widened Into Universality.

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

The Deeper We Look Into Nature, The More We Recognize That It Is Full Of Life, And The More Profoundly We Know That All Life Is A Secret And That We Are United With All Life That Is In Nature.

Preservation Of Life Is The Only True Joy.

Preservation Of Life

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

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.

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

Serious Illness Doesn't Bother Me For Long Because I Am Too Inhospitable A Host.

Serious Illness

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.

O Heavenly Father, Protect And Bless All Things That Have Breath: Guard Them From All Evil And Let Them Sleep In Peace.

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.

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

Love Is The Only Thing That Increases Twofold Every Time It Is Shared.

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

We Must Fight Against The Spirit Of Unconscious Cruelty With Which We Treat The Animals. Animals Suffer As Much As We Do. True Humanity Does Not Allow Us To Impose Such Sufferings On Them. It Is Our Duty To Make The Whole World Recognize It. Until We Extend Our Circle Of Compassion To All Living Things, Humanity Will Not Find Peace.

In Modern European Thought A Tragedy Is Occurring In That The Original Bonds Uniting The Affirmative Attitude Towards The World With Ethics Are, By A Slow But Irresistible Process, Loosening And Finally Parting. Out Of My Life And Thought.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

To Work For The Common Good Is The Greatest Creed.

Community Service

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.

Your Soul Suffers If You Live Superficially.

Constant Kindness Can Accomplish Much.

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.

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.

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."

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

Renunciation Of Thinking Is A Declaration Of Spiritual Bankruptcy.

My Life Is My Argument.

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

To Educate Yourself For The Feeling Of Gratitude Means To Take Nothing For Granted.

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.

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.

Ethics Are Complete, Profound And Alive Only When Addressed To All Living Beings. Only Then Are We In Spiritual Connection With The World. Any Philosophy Not Representing This, Not Based On The Indefinite Totality Of Life, Is Bound To Disappear.

You Must Learn To Understand The Secret Of Gratitude. It Is More Than Just So-called Virtue. It Is Revealed To You As A Mysterious Law Of Existence. In Obedience To It We Have To Fulfill Our Destiny.

Day By Day We Should Weigh What We Have Granted To The Spirit Of The World Against What We Have Denied To The Spirit Of Jesus, In Thought And Especially In Deed.

By Respect For Life We Become Religious In A Way That Is Elementary, Profound And Alive. 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. In Everyone's Life, At Some Time, Our Inner Fire Goes Out. It Is Then Burst Into Flame By An Encounter With Another Human Being. We Should All Be Thankful For Those People Who Rekindle The Inner Spirit. - Albert Schweitzer

All The Kindness Which A Man Puts Out Into The World Works On The Heart And Thoughts Of Mankind.

Compassion, In Which All Ethics Must Take Root, Can Only Attain Its Full Breadth And Depth If It Embraces All Living Creatures And Does Not Limit Itself To Mankind.

Man Has Become A Superman ... Because He Not Only Disposes Oinnate, Physical Forces, But Because He Is In Command ... Olatent 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.

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

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.

You Don't Live In A World All Alone. Your Brothers Are Here Too.

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

Because I Have Confidence In The Power Of Truth And In The Spirit, I Believe In The Future Of Mankind. Affirmation Of The World And Of Life Contains Within Itself An Optimistic Willing And Hoping Which Can Never Be Lost. It Is, Therefore, Never Afraid To Face The Dismal Reality And To See It As It Really Is.

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

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

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

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.

A Man Is Ethical Only When Life, As Such, Is Sacred To Him, That Of Plants And Animals As That Of His Fellow Men, And When He Devotes Himself Helpfully To All Life That Is In Need Of Help.

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

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

Reverence For Life Affords Me My Fundamental Principle Of Morality, Namely, That Good Consists In Maintaining, Assisting, And Enhancing Life And That To Destroy, Harm, Or To Hinder Life Is Evil. Affirmation Of The World - That Is Affirmation Of The Will To Live, Which Appears In Phenomenal Forms All Around Me - Is Only Possible For Me In That I Give Myself Out For Other Life.

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

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.

I Am Certain And Have Always Stressed That The Destination Of Mankind Is To Become More And More Humane. The Ideal Of Humanity Has To Be Revived.

Whoever Is Spared Personal Pain Must Feel Himself Called To Help In Diminishing The Pain Of Others. We Must All Carry Our Share Of The Misery Which Lies Upon The World.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

The Study Of The Life Of Jesus Has Had A Curious History. It Set Out In Quest Of The Historical Jesus, Believing That When It Had Found Him It Could Bring Him Straight Into Our Time As A Teacher And Saviour. ... But He Does Not Stay; He Passes By Our Time And Returns To His Own... He Returned To His Own Time, Not Owing To The Application Of Any Historical Ingenuity, But By The Same Inevitable Necessity By Which The Liberated Pendulum Returns To Its Original Position.

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.

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.

Help Me To Fling My Life Like A Flaming Firebrand Into The Gathering Darkness Of The World.

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

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

The Quiet Conscience Is The Invention Of The Devil. No One Of Us May Permit Any Preventable Pain To Be Inflicted Even Though The Responsibility For That Pain Is Not Ours. No One May Shut His Eyes And Think That The Pain Which Is Therefore Not Visible, Is Non-existent.

A Man Who Possesses A Veneration Of Life Will Not Simply Say His Prayers. He Will Throw Himself Into The Battle To Preserve Life, If For No Other Reason Than That He Himself Is An Extension Of Life Around Him.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The Friend Of Nature Is The Man Who Feels Himself Inwardly United With Everything That Lives In Nature, Who Shares In The Fate Of All Creatures, Helps Them When He Can In Their Pain And Need, And As Far As Possible Avoids Injuring Or Taking Life.

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

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.

Do Something Good And Someone Might Imitate It.

You Know Of The Disease In Central Africa Called Sleeping Sickness. . . . There Also Exists A Sleeping Sickness Of The Soul. Its Most Dangerous Aspect Is That One Is Unaware Of Its Coming. That Is Why You Have To Be Careful. As Soon As You Notice The Slightest Sign Of Indifference, The Moment You Become Aware Of The Loss Of A Certain Seriousness, Of Longing, Of Enthusiasm And Zest, Take It As A Warning. You Should Realize Your Soul Suffers If You Live Superficially.

I Still Remain Convinced That Truth, Love, Peaceableness, Meekness, And Kindness Are The Violence Which Can Master All Other Violence. The World Will Be Theirs As Soon As Ever A Sufficient Number Of People With Purity Of Heart, With Strength, And With Perseverance Think And Live Out The Thoughts Of Love And Truth, Of Meekness And Peaceableness.

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?

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.

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

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.

If You Own Something You Cannot Give Away, Then You Don't Own It, It Owns You.

Reverence For Life Affords Me My Fundamental Principle Of Morality.

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.

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

Humanitarianism Consists In Never Sacrificing A Human Being To A Purpose.

Don't Let Your Hearts Grow Numb. Stay Alert. It Is Your Soul Which Matters.

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.

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

What We Call Love Is In Its Essence Reverence For Life.

Reverence For Life

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

There Is No Higher Religion Than Human Service.

Community Service

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.

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.

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

By Ethical Conduct Toward All Creatures, We Enter Into A Spiritual Relationship With The Universe.

Every Patient Carries His Or Her Own Doctor Inside.

I Am Life That Wants To Live, In The Midst Of Life That Wants To Live.

I Am Conscious That Meat Eatingis Not In Accordance With The Finer Feelings,and I Abstain From It Whenever I Can.

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.

Man Can Hardly Even Recognize The Devils Of His Own Creation.

Mind Your Own Business

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