Albert Schweitzer Quotes

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 do to others what you would not have them do to you.

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.

When a human being kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice.

Faith is the substance of whatever it is that we hope for. The important thing is that we teach that faith is connected to good works and responsibility.

When a human kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God? It's unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give.

You don't have to love animals to recognize that it is immoral and unjust to exploit them. But if you do love animals, but you continue to participate in their exploitation, you need to rethink your idea of what love means.

Piety and morality are but the same spirit differently manifested. Piety is religion with its face toward God; morality is religion with its face toward the world.

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.

We are all here on this planet, as it were, as tourists. None of us can live here forever. The longest we might live is a hundred years. So while we are here we should try to have a good heart and to make something positive and useful of our lives. Whether we live just a few years or a whole century, it would be truly regrettable and sad if we were to spend that time aggravating the problems that afflict other people, animals, and the environment. The most important things is to be a good human being.

There is a certain consideration, and a general duty of humanity, that binds us not only to the animals, which have life and feeling, but even to the trees and plants. We owe justice to people, and kindness and benevolence to all other creatures who may be susceptible of it. There is some intercourse between them and us, and some mutual obligation.

Morality comes from a commitment to treat other as we wish to be treated, which follows from the realization that none of us is the sole occupant of the universe.

Forgiveness is spiritual. Punishment is legal," Leo says. "They're not mutually exclusive.

It is through truth & non-violence that I can have some glimpse of God. Truth & non-violence are my God. They are the obverse and reverse of the same coin.

To be good and to do good-that is the whole of religion.

It is always so much easier to be moral than it is to be spiritual.

What we do to animals, we do to ourselves.

The universe is an example of love. Like a tree. Like the ocean. Like my body. Like my wheelchair. I see the love.

Being good is just a matter of temperament in the end.

The first person to promulgate the Golden Rule, which was the bedrock of this empathic spirituality, was Confucius 500 years before Christ.

Try to find the path of least resistance and use it without harming others. Live with integrity and morality, not only with people but with all beings.

Put this restriction on your pleasures, be cautious that they injure no being that lives.

No one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.

Human morality is unthinkable without empathy.

Sympathy with nature is part of a good person's religion.