“To the man who is truly ethical all life is sacred, including that which from the human point of view seems lower in the scale. He makes distinctions only as each case comes before him, and under the pressure of necessity, as, for example, when it falls to him to decide which of two lives he must sacrifice in order to preserve the other.”

—  Albert Schweitzer

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 269
Context: To the man who is truly ethical all life is sacred, including that which from the human point of view seems lower in the scale. He makes distinctions only as each case comes before him, and under the pressure of necessity, as, for example, when it falls to him to decide which of two lives he must sacrifice in order to preserve the other. But all through this series of decisions he is conscious of acting on subjective grounds and arbitrarily, and knows that he bears the responsibility for the life which is sacrificed.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 28, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "To the man who is truly ethical all life is sacred, including that which from the human point of view seems lower in th…" by Albert Schweitzer?
Albert Schweitzer photo
Albert Schweitzer 126
French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosoph… 1875–1965

Related quotes

Richard Adams photo

“When the man was disgraced and told to go away, he was allowed to ask all the animals whether any of them would come with him and share his fortunes and his life. There were only two who agreed to come entirely of their own accord, and they were the dog and the cat. And ever since then, those two have been jealous of each other, and each is for ever trying to make man choose which one he likes best. Every man prefers one or the other.”

Richard Adams book The Plague Dogs

The Plague Dogs (1977)

Chinmayananda Saraswati photo

“Everyone points to the other man, who, according to him, is happier But the only one, who has the courage to declare that he is truly happy, is he who has relinquished all his passions and hungers from within.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

Albert Schweitzer photo

“A man is really ethical only when he obeys the constraint laid on him to help all life which he is able to succor, and when he goes out of his way to avoid injuring anything living. He does not ask how far this or that life deserves sympathy as valuable in itself, nor how far it is capable of feeling. To him life as such is sacred. He shatters no ice crystal that sparkles in the sun, tears no leaf from its tree, breaks off no flower, and is careful not to crush any insect as he walks.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics
Context: A man is really ethical only when he obeys the constraint laid on him to help all life which he is able to succor, and when he goes out of his way to avoid injuring anything living. He does not ask how far this or that life deserves sympathy as valuable in itself, nor how far it is capable of feeling. To him life as such is sacred. He shatters no ice crystal that sparkles in the sun, tears no leaf from its tree, breaks off no flower, and is careful not to crush any insect as he walks. If he works by lamplight on a summer evening, he prefers to keep the window shut and to breathe stifling air, rather than to see insect after insect fall on his table with singed and sinking wings.
If he goes out in to the street after a rainstorm and sees a worm which has strayed there, he reflects that it will certainly dry up in the sunshine, if it does not quickly regain the damp soil into which it can creep, and so he helps it back from the deadly paving stones into the lush grass. Should he pass by an insect which has fallen into a pool, he spares the time to reach it a leaf or stalk on which it may clamber and save itself.

Jean Jacques Rousseau photo

“Let's not be dazzled by the sententious glitter with which error and lying often cover themselves. Society is not created by the crowd, and bodies come together in vain when hearts reject each other. The truly sociable man is more difficult in his relationships than others; those which consist only in false appearances cannot suit him. He prefers to live far from wicked men without thinking about them, than to see them and hate them. He prefers to flee his enemy rather than seek him out to harm him. A person who knows no other society than that of the heart will not seek his society in your circles. That is How J. J. must have thought and behaved before the conspiracy of which he is the object.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Second Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Dialogues: Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques (published 1782)

Annie Besant photo

“When a man has sufficiently distinguished himself by service, and by acquiring and accepting the theoretical views that were glanced at in 'Seeking the Master' then he finds his Master — or rather his Master finds him. During all the time of his struggle those gracious eyes have been upon him watching him progress; in many lives in the past he has come under the same influence which now is to become the dominant influence in his life. He has reached a point where the Master can reveal Himself, can place him definitely on probation, can help to prepare him for Initiation. That is the first stage: a particular Master chooses a particular aspirant and takes charge of him, in order to prepare him for Initiation; for you must remember that Initiation is a quite definite thing, that only Those who have already attained can enable others to enter on the Path which They Themselves have trodden.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man, 1923, p. 61

Martin Buber photo

“Man wishes to be confirmed in his being by man, and wishes to have a presence in the being of the other….
Secretly and bashfully he watches for a YES which allows him to be and which can come to him only from one human person to another.”

Martin Buber book I and Thou

Source: I and Thou

Niklas Luhmann photo

“The activity of observing establishes a distinction in a space that remains unmarked, the space from which the observer executes the distinction. The observer must employ a distinction in order to generate the difference between unmarked and marked space, and between himself and what he indicates. The whole point of this distinction (its intention) is to mark something as distinct from something else. At the same time, the observer — in drawing a distinction - makes himself visable to others. He betrays his presence - even if a further distinction is required to distinguish him.”

Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) German sociologist, administration expert, and social systems theorist

Source: Art As a Social System (2000), p. 54 as cited in: Pamela M. Lee (2004) Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960's. p. 66.

Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton photo

“The man who seeks one thing in life and but one
May hope to achieve it before life is done;
But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes
Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows
A harvest of barren regrets.”

Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (1831–1891) English statesman and poet

Part ii, canto ii.
Lucile (1860)

Émile Durkheim photo

“Man cannot become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him to which he belongs. To free him from all social pressure is to abandon him to himself and demoralize him.”

Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)

Source: On Suicide: A Study in Sociology

William Faulkner photo

“Life is motion, and motion is concerned with what makes man move — which is ambition, power, pleasure. What time a man can devote to morality, he must take by force from the motion of which he is a part. He is compelled to make choices between good and evil sooner or later, because moral conscience demands that from him in order that he can live with himself tomorrow. His moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Paris Review interview (1958)

Related topics