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.
Holding on to love is not wrong, but you need to learn to hold it lightly, caressingly. Let it fly when it wants. When it's allowed to be free, love is what makes life alive, joyful, and new. As long as love is in my heart, it's everywhere.
It's not so much that he can't fall in love, but he has not the weakness necessary.
Rochester: "I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard…And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?" Jane: "You are no ruin sir - no lighting-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.
We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
But I love you I'm totally and completely in love with you and I don't care if you think it's too late. I'm telling you anyway.
I will say that as I get older and calmer and quieter in my own self, the one quality in a woman that I find more and more attractive is kindness. A sense of adventure and humor is important too, but I truly find kindness and consideration for others to be the most attractive thing in anyone.
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