Top 250 Albert Schweitzer Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

202. “Faith which refuses to face indisputable facts is but little faith. Truth is always gain, however hard it is to accommodate ourselves to it. To linger in any kind of untruth proves to be a departure from the straight way of faith.”

— Albert Schweitzer

203. “We cannot possibly let ourselves get frozen into regarding everyone we do not know as an absolute stranger.”

— Albert Schweitzer

204. “My life carries its own meaning in itself.”

— Albert Schweitzer

205. “A thinking man feels compelled to approach all life with the same reverence he has for his own.”

— Albert Schweitzer

206. “Soldiers’ graves are the greatest preachers of peace.”

— Albert Schweitzer

207. “It is the fate of every truth to be an object of ridicule when it is first acclaimed.”

— Albert Schweitzer

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208. “You must give time to your fellow men – even if it’s a little thing, do something for others – something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. –.”

— Albert Schweitzer

209. “Those who experiment on animals should never be able to quiet their own conscience by telling themselves that these cruelties have a worthy aim.”

— Albert Schweitzer

210. “As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.”

— Albert Schweitzer

211. “The city of truth cannot be built on the swampy ground of skepticism.”

— Albert Schweitzer

212. “Thought is the strongest thing we have. Work done by true and profound thought – that is a real force.”

— Albert Schweitzer

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213. “The harvested fields bathed in the autumn mist speak of God and his goodness far more vividly than any human lips.”

— Albert Schweitzer

214. “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.’”

— Albert Schweitzer

215. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

216. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

217. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

218. “Where principles and heart stand in conflict with each other, let us make the law of the spirit free from the law of principles.”

— Albert Schweitzer

219. “Any profound view of the world is mysticism. It has, of course, to deal with life and the world, both of which are nonrational entities.”

— Albert Schweitzer

220. “That’s my private ant. You’re liable to break its legs.”

— Albert Schweitzer

221. “The greatest living person in the world is some individual who at this very moment has gone in love to help another.”

— Albert Schweitzer

222. “In resigning ourselves to our fate without a struggle, we are guilty of inhumanity.”

— Albert Schweitzer

223. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

224. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

225. “Mysticism occurs whenever a human being sees the separation between the natural and the supernatural, between the temporal and the eternal, as overcome.”

— Albert Schweitzer

226. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

227. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

228. “Ideals are thoughts. So long as they exist merely as thoughts, the power in them remains ineffective.”

— Albert Schweitzer

229. “All people are endowed with the faculty of compassion, and for this reason can develop the humanitarian spirit.”

— Albert Schweitzer

230. “The Christ of Theology is not alive for us today. He is wrapped in the grave cloths of dogma.”

— Albert Schweitzer

231. “We are united with all life that is in nature. Man can no longer live his life for himself alone.”

— Albert Schweitzer

232. “We cannot abdicate our conscience to an organization, nor to a government.”

— Albert Schweitzer

233. “Arguing from facts never wins a definitive victory against skillfully presented opinion.”

— Albert Schweitzer

234. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

235. “The spirit of the age is filled with the disdain for thinking.”

— Albert Schweitzer

236. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

237. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

238. “Only when an ideal of peace is born in the minds of the peoples will the institutions set up to maintain this peace effectively fulfill the function expected of them.”

— Albert Schweitzer

239. “It seemed to me a matter of course that we should all take our share of the burden of pain which lies upon the world.”

— Albert Schweitzer

240. “The thinking man 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, even the lowliest creature; but to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies.”

— Albert Schweitzer

241. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

242. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

243. “Does my behavior in respect of love affect nothing? That is because there is not enough love in me.”

— Albert Schweitzer

244. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

245. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

246. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer

247. “Only an ethical movement can rescue us from barbarism, and the ethical comes into existence only in individuals.”

— Albert Schweitzer

248. “An idea is, in the end, always stronger than circumstances.”

— Albert Schweitzer

249. “If people would wake that feeling of compassion within themselves, the suffering of others would affect them more often, and the desire to alleviate it, if not prevent it, would grow inside them. Then, the active involvement in the suffering of other beings would become the supreme life principle in everyday reasoning, feeling and the activity of individuals.”

— Albert Schweitzer

250. “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.”

— Albert Schweitzer