A thinking man feels compelled to approach all life with the same reverence he has for his own.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of valuing all aspects of life with the same respect we have for our own existence.
Albert Schweitzer's quote speaks to the moral responsibility of a thoughtful individual to appreciate and honor not only their own life but all forms of life and the experiences within it. This reverence reflects a profound understanding that every entity, including other humans and nature, deserves compassion and respect, leading to a more harmonious and empathetic existence.
In practice
In a speech about environmental conservation, you might quote this to emphasize the need for ecological respect.
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.
With a lot of songs on this record, one verse doesn't relate to the next verse. I don't think that one day really relates to the next day in life.
There are places where the mind dies so that a truth which is its very denial may be born.
In adapting to life in the melting pot of America, I discovered that the same soft power of science has a huge influence in building bridges between cultures and religions - and has the potential to do so with the Muslim world.
It is really hard to be lonely very long in a world of words. Even if you don't have friends somewhere, you still have language, and it will find you and wrap its little syllables around you and suddenly there will be a story to live in.
The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood.
Time is a dream ... a destroying dream;_x000D_ _x000D_ It lays great cities in dust, it fills the seas;_x000D_ _x000D_ It covers the face of beauty, and tumbles walls.
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