Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.
Interpretation
The quote encourages awareness of the suffering others endure, which we often ignore.
Albert Schweitzer's quote serves as a reminder to cultivate empathy for those who are suffering. It urges us to confront the discomfort of acknowledging the hardships faced by others, rather than turning a blind eye, thereby fostering compassion and a deeper understanding of the human experience.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one could reference this quote to emphasize the importance of recognizing poverty.
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.
The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.
Look closely at those who patronize you. Half are unfeeling, half untaught.
It is the tragedy of the world that no one knows what he doesn't know - and the less a man knows, the more sure he is that he knows everything.
God's grace doesn't always come in comfortable forms. But it's still grace, and it's still evidence that He loves us.
When you have no experience of pain, it is rather hard to experience joy.
Time and experience have taught me that fame and money very rarely go to the worthy, by the way - hence we shouldn't ever be too impressed by either of those impostors. Value folk for who they are, how they live and what they give - that's a much better benchmark.
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