What we call love is in its essence reverence for life.
Interpretation
Love is fundamentally about respecting and valuing life itself.
This quote by Albert Schweitzer suggests that love transcends mere affection; it embodies a deep respect and admiration for life as a whole. By equating love with 'reverence for life,' Schweitzer emphasizes the importance of caring for all living beings, highlighting that true love is rooted in a profound appreciation for existence itself.
In practice
In a speech about compassion, you might quote Schweitzer to emphasize the need to respect all forms of life.
I do not want to frighten you by telling you about the temptations life will bring. Anyone who is healthy in spirit will overcome them. But there is something I want you to realize. It does not matter so much what you do. What matters is whether your soul is harmed by what you do. If your soul is harmed, something irreparable happens, the extent of which you won't realize until it will be too late.
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.
By ethical conduct toward all creatures, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the universe.
No one can give a definition of the soul. But we know what it feels like. The soul is the sense of something higher than ourselves, something that stirs in us thoughts, hopes, and aspirations which go out to the world of goodness, truth and beauty. The soul is a burning desire to breathe in this world of light and never to lose it--to remain children of light.
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.
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.
All my feelings have the color you desire to paint.
When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love.
So even as we see the horror of death, may we be reminded that in the end, love wins. Mercy triumphs. Life is more powerful than death. And even those who have committed great violence can have the image of God come to life again within them as they hear the whisper of love. May the whisper of love grow louder than the thunder of violence. May we love loudly.
It's hard to love yourself when you've been told your whole life that there is something wrong with you - when you are called dirty because of your skin color.
At the end of the day, you know, love does not happen between two perfect people as much as we would wish.
Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.
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