Background Image

...

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.

-Albert Schweitzer

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

What Has Been Presented

Albert Schweitzer

...

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.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Albert Schweitzer

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.

Within Every Patient There Resides A Doctor, And We As Physicians Are At Our Best When We We Put Our Patients In Touch With The Doctor Inside Themselves.

Reverence For Life Affords Me My Fundamental Principle Of Morality.

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

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.

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

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.

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

There Can Be No Kingdom Of God In The World Without The Kingdom Of God In Our Hearts.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Difficult Things

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.

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.

Renunciation Of Thinking Is A Declaration Of Spiritual Bankruptcy.

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 Ones Who Will Find Real Happiness Are Those Who Find A Way To Serve

I Used To Suffer Particularly Because The Poor Animals Must Endure So Much Pain And Want. The Sight Of An Old, Limping Horse Being Dragged Along By One Man While Another Man Struck Him With A Stick He Was Being Driven To The Colmar Slaughterhouse - Haunted Me For Weeks.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

If You Are Called Upon To Play A Church Service, It Is A Greater Honor Than If You Were To Play A Concert On The Finest Organ In The World... Thank God Each Time When You Are Privileged To Sit Before The Organ Console And Assist In The Worship Of The Almighty.

Love ... Is A Living Reality.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Only Through Love Can We Obtain Communion With God.

Communion With God

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.

We Cannot Understand What Happens In The Universe. What Is Glorious In It Is United With What Is Full Of Horror. What Is Full Of Meaning Is United To What Is Senseless. The Spirit Of The Universe Is At Once Creative And Destructive — It Creates While It Destroys And Destroys While It Creates, And Therefore It Remains To Us A Riddle. And We Must Inevitably Resign Ourselves To This.

Thought Is The Strongest Thing We Have.

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

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

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.

The Highest Knowledge Is To Know That We Are Surrounded By Mystery. Neither Knowledge Nor Hope For The Future Can Be The Pivot Of Our Life Or Determine Its Direction. It Is Intended To Be Solely Determined By Our Allowing Ourselves To Be Gripped By The Ethical God, Who Reveals Himself In Us, And By Our Yielding Our Will To His.

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

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.

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.

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

I Do Not Believe That We Can Put Into Anyone Ideas Which Are Not In Him Already. As A Rule There Are In Everyone All Sorts Of Good Ideas, Ready Like Tinder. But Much Of This Tinder Catches Fire, Or Catches It Successfully, Only When It Meets Some Flame Or Spark From Outside, I.e., From Some Other Person.

We Need A Boundless Ethics Which Will Include Animals Also.

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

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.

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.

The Bhagavad-gita Has A Profound Influence On The Spirit Of Mankind By Its Devotion To God Which Is Manifested By Actions.

Devotion To God

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.

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.

The Highest Knowledge Is To Know That We Are Surrounded By Mystery.

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.

Truth Has Not Special Time Of Its Own. Its Hour Is Now - Always And, Indeed Then Most Truly, When It Seems Unsuitable To Actual Circumstances.

Because I Have Confidence In The Power Of Truth, And Of The Spirit, I Have Confidence In The Future Of Mankind.

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.

Example Is Leadership.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

World-view Is A Product Of Life-view, Not Vice Versa.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

In Case My Life Should End With The Cannibals, I Hope They Will Write On My Tombstone, 'we Have Eaten Dr. Schweitzer. He Was Good To The End.'

...try To Tell The People Of America About Dr. Gerson's Merits And ...results...i Wish You The Best In Your Difficult Task.

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

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

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.

I Must Forgive Without Noise Or Fuss.

Knowing Who You Are

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

Sincerity Is The Foundation Of The Spiritual Life.

From Naive Simplicity We Arrive At More Profound Simplicity.

An Idea Is, In The End, Always Stronger Than Circumstances.

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

I Too Had Thoughts Once Of Being An Intellectual, But I Found It Too Difficult.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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 Not Always Granted To The Sower To See The Harvest.

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

I Believe That I Possess This Value: To Serve Jesus. I Am Less At Peace Than If My Goal Would Be To Attain A Professorship And A Good Life, But I Live. And That Gives Me The Tremendous Feeling Of Happiness, As If One Would Hear Music. One Feels Uprooted, Because One Asks, What Lies Ahead, What Decisions Should I Make-but More Alive, Happier Than Those Anchored In Life. To Drift With Released Anchor.

The Great Enemy Of Morality Is Indifference.

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

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.

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.

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

Search And See If There Is Not Some Place Where You May Invest Your Humanity.

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

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.

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

A Man Can Do Only What He Can Do. But If He Does That Each Day He Can Sleep At Night And Do It Again The Next Day.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Man's Ethics Must Not End With Man, But Should Extend To The Universe. He Must Regain The Consciousness Of The Great Chain Of Life From Which He Cannot Be Separated.

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

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

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

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

The Destiny Of Man Is To Be More And More Human.

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.

Set A Great Example. Someone May Imitate It.

The Greatest Living Person In The World Is Some Individual Who At This Very Moment Has Gone In Love To Help Another.

Man Is A Clever Animal Who Behaves Like An Imbecile.

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

Most Men Are Scantily Nourished On A Modicum Of Happiness And A Number Of Empty Thoughts Which Life Lays On Their Plates. They Are Kept In The Road Of Life Through Stern Necessity By Elemental Duties Which They Cannot Avoid.

My Life Carries Its Own Meaning In Itself.

Meaning Of Life

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

Reverence For Life

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.

My Life Is My Argument.

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.

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.

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

In The Hearts Of People Today There Is A Deep Longing For Peace. When The True Spirit Of Peace Is Thoroughly Dominant, It Becomes An Inner Experience With Unlimited Possibilities. Only When This Really Happens - When The Spirit Of Peace Awakens And Takes Possession Of Men's Hearts, Can Humanity Be Saved From Perishing.

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.

Ethics Is Nothing Else Than Reverence For Life.

Reverence For Life

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Mind Your Own Business

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

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.

The Three Most Important Ways To Lead People Are:... By Example... By Example... By Example.

My Life Is Full Of Meaning To Me. The Life Around Me Must Be Full Of Significance To Itself. If I Am To Expect Others To Respect My Life, Then I Must Respect The Other Life I See.

We Cannot Abdicate Our Conscience To An Organization, Nor To A Government.

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

Do Something For Somebody Everyday For Which You Do Not Get Paid.

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.

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.

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

To Work For The Common Good Is The Greatest Creed.

Community Service

The Interior Joy We Feel When We Have Done A Good Deed Is The Nourishment The Soul Requires.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Gratitude Ascending From Man To God Is The Supreme Transaction Between Earth And Heaven.

We All Owe To Others Much Of The Gentleness And Wisdom That We Have Made Our Own; And We May Well Ask Ourselves What Will Others Owe To Us

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

The Ethic Of Reverence For Life Prompts Us To Keep Each Other Alert To What Troubles Us And To Speak And Act Dauntlessly Together In Discharging The Responsibility That We Feel. It Keeps Us Watching Together For Opportunities To Bring Some Sort Of Help To Animals In Recompense For The Great Misery That Men Inflict Upon Them, And Thus For A Moment We Escape From The Incomprehensible Horror Of Existence.

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.

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.

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

The Quiet Conscience Is An Invention Of The Devil.

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 Doctor Of The Future Will Be Oneself.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

I Look Back Upon My Youth And Realize How So Many People Gave Me Help, Understanding, Courage - Very Important Things To Me - And They Never Knew It. They Entered Into My Life And Became Powers Within Me.

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

Trending Author

William Blackstone

Jan Peter Balkenende

Category