The result of the voyage does not depend on the speed of the ship, but on whether or not it keeps a true course.
Interpretation
Success is determined by staying true to your goals rather than just how quickly you achieve them.
This quote by Albert Schweitzer emphasizes the importance of maintaining a steady and true course in life rather than focusing solely on speed or immediate outcomes. It suggests that the journey towards a goal is defined by the values and direction you choose, rather than the pace at which you travel, ultimately advocating for perseverance and integrity over haste.
In practice
In a speech about long-term projects, you might say, 'Remember, the result of the voyage does not depend on the speed of the ship.'
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.
Let each one of us say, 'I am an American. I intend to stay an American. I will do my best to wipe from my heart hate, rancor and political prejudice. I will sustain my government. And, through good days or bad, I will try to serve my country.'
Money is like love; it kills slowly and painfully the one who withholds it, and enlivens the other who turns it on his fellow man.
In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time. The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along.
We are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not.
An admiral without ships, a hand without fingers, in service of a king without a throne. Is this a knight who comes before us, or the answer to a child's riddle?
Culture is just a shambling zombie that repeats what it did in life; bits of it drop off, and it doesn't appear to notice.
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