We must never allow the voice of humanity within us to be silenced. It is humanity's sympathy with all creatures that first makes us truly human.
Interpretation
We should always listen to our compassion and empathy for others, as it defines our humanity.
In this quote, Albert Schweitzer emphasizes the importance of nurturing our inner compassion and empathy for all living beings. He argues that ignoring this voice diminishes our humanity and that it is through our sympathy towards others that we truly define what it means to be human.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about animal rights to emphasize the need for compassion.
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.
When a war is won, it's the losers, not the winners, who are liberated.
Our emotions Are only βincidentsβ In the effort to keep day and night together.
what sphinx of cement and aluminium bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination
If, however, economic ambitions are good servants, they are bad masters
...It really IS easier to experience spiritual connection when your life is in the process of coming apart.
It is not hard to deceive ministers, relatives and friends. But it is impossible to deceive Christ.
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