Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.

— Albert Schweitzer

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 have sought and found how to serve.

— Albert Schweitzer

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. All of us live spiritually by what others have given us, often unwittingly, in the significant hours of our life. At the time these significant hours may not even be perceived. We may not recognize them until years later when we look back, as one remembers some long-ago music or a boyhood landscape. 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.

— Albert Schweitzer

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

I therefore used the last ten minutes of our classes to recite with them words from the Bible and verses from hymns, so that they would know them and the words would stay with them throughout their lives. The aim of my teaching was to bring to their hearts and thoughts the great truths of the Gospels, so religion would have meaning in their lives and give them the strength to resist the irreligious forces that might assail them. I also tried to awaken in them a love for the Church, and a desire for that hour of spiritual peace to be found in the Sunday service. I taught them to respect traditional doctrines, but at the same time to hold fast to the saying of Paul that where the spirit of Christ is, there is freedom.

— Albert Schweitzer

It is only through love that we can attain to communion with God. All living knowledge of God rest upon this foundation: that we experience Him in our lives as Will-to-love.

— Albert Schweitzer

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 realize his own true worth.

— Albert Schweitzer

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.

— Albert Schweitzer

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

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others but it also becomes richer and happier.

— Albert Schweitzer