Albert Schweitzer Quotes

I did not use paint, I made myself up morally.

Moral change still depends on the individual and not on the passage of any law.

I feel like there's a true spirit of individuality in Portland that's inherent to the place.

Believe things, rather than man.

I don't feel that there is anything deep in the political culture that prevents "educating the masses." I'm old enough to recall vividly the high level of culture, general and political, among first-generation working people during the Great Depression. Workers' education was lively and effective, union-based - mostly the vigorous rising labor movement, reviving from the ashes of the 1920s. I've often seen independent and impressive initiatives in working-class and poor and deprived communities today.

The hammer and the anvil are the two hemispheres of every true reformer's character.

We may convert every house in the country into a charity asylum, we may fill the land with hospitals, but the misery of man will still continue to exist until man's character changes.

Is it possible, I wonder, for a man to truly change? Or do character and habit form the immovable boundaries of our lives?

You need to learn independence. You have to be independent - it builds character.

We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose.

There is much to be done, there is much that can be done... one person of integrity can make a difference.

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.

The real test of any church or religion is the kind of men it makes.

Character alone will have real effect on the masses.

What is to become of an independent statesman, one who will bow the knee to no idol, who will worship nothing as a divinity but truth, virtue, and his country? I will tell you; he will be regarded more by posterity than those who worship hounds and horses; and although he will not make his own fortune, he will make the fortune of his country.

The incessant struggle of the mind to be true to itself, to absorb new truths, to grow, to overcome pressures--these are the painful portion of the independent thinker. Almost his sole reward is the satisfaction of integrity.

Highs and lows make you feel that things matter, but they're nothing." "So what's something?" "Being reliable is something. Being good.

If there is a soul, what is it, and where did it come from, and where does it go? Can anyone who is guided by his reason possibly imagine a soul independent of a body, or the place of its residence, or the character of it, or anything concerning it? If man is justified in any belief or disbelief on any subject, he is warranted in the disbelief in a soul. Not one scrap of evidence exists to prove any such impossible thing.

Success is more permanent when you achieve it without destroying your principles.

Boy Scouts does very well in making Scouts aware of character and integrity and … virtues and incorporate [them] in their lives so that they carry themselves as [those] kind of [people] for the rest of their [lives].

There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters.

Establishment suggests there must be some Wizard of Oz somewhere pulling the strings. That's not the way it works. There are individuals like myself. I sat there and watched Donald Trump, and I said, look, someone has got to say something.

Barack Obama was always special, you know? And not special, like, He's gonna be important, he's gonna be president. He was special in terms of his honesty, his sincerity, his compassion for other people.

Character makes trust possible, and trust is the foundation of leadership.

There is no benefit in the gifts of a bad man.