“The ethical ideas on which civilization rests have been wandering about the world, poverty-stricken and homeless.”

—  Albert Schweitzer

Source: Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 1 : The Decay and the Restoration of Civilization, Ch. 1 How Philosophy is Responsible for the Collapse of Civilization
Context: The ethical ideas on which civilization rests have been wandering about the world, poverty-stricken and homeless. No theory of the universe has been advanced which can give them solid foundation; in fact not one has made its appearance which can claim for itself solidity and inner consistency. The age of philosophical dogmatism had come to an end, and after that nothing was recognized as truth except the science which described reality. Complete theories of the universe no longer appeared as fixed stars; they were regarded as resting on hypothesis, and ranked no higher than comets.

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 "The ethical ideas on which civilization rests have been wandering about the world, poverty-stricken and homeless." by Albert Schweitzer?
Albert Schweitzer photo
Albert Schweitzer126
French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosoph… 1875–1965

Related quotes

George Bernard Shaw photo

“The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

#107
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Muhammad Yunus photo

“Poverty has been created by the economic and social system that we have designed for the world. It is the institutions that we have built, and feel so proud of, which created poverty.”

Muhammad Yunus (1940) Bangladeshi banker, economist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

"Eliminating Poverty Through Market-Based Social Entrepreneurship" in Global Urban Development Magazine (May 2005)

Albert Schweitzer photo

“Ethics in our Western world has hitherto been largely limited to the relations of man to man. But that is a limited ethics. We need a boundless ethics which will include the animals also.”

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

Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics
Context: I must interpret the life about me as I interpret the life that is my own. My life is full of meaning to me. The life around me must be full of significance to itself. If I am to expect others to respect my life, then I must respect the other life I see, however strange it may be to mine. And not only other human life, but all kinds of life: life above mine, if there be such life; life below mine, as I know it to exist. Ethics in our Western world has hitherto been largely limited to the relations of man to man. But that is a limited ethics. We need a boundless ethics which will include the animals also.

Paul Theroux photo

“In many ways connection has been disastrous. We have confused information (of which there has been too much of) with ideas (of which there are too few. I found out much more about the world and myself by being unconnected.”

Paul Theroux (1941) American travel writer and novelist

Fresh Air Fiend (2000)

“There is an Indian story -- at least I heard it as an Indian story -- about an Englishman who, having been told that the world rested on a platform which rested on the back of an elephant which rested in turn on the back of a turtle, asked (perhaps he was an ethnographer; it is the way they behave), what did the turtle rest on? Another turtle. And that turtle? 'Ah, Sahib, after that it is turtles all the way down.”

Clifford Geertz book The Interpretation of Cultures

Source: The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), p. 28-29

Gerard O'Neill photo

“Clearly our first task is to use the material wealth of space to solve the urgent problems we now face on Earth: to bring the poverty-stricken segments of the world up to a decent living standard, without recourse to war or punitive action against those already in material comfort; to provide for a maturing civilization the basic energy vital to its survival.”

Gerard O'Neill (1927–1992) Physicist, author, and inventor

The High Frontier (1976)

Alexander Smith photo

“We hear the wail of the remorseful winds
In their strange penance. And this wretched orb
Knows not the taste of rest; a maniac world,
Homeless and sobbing through the deep she goes.”

Alexander Smith (1829–1867) Scottish poet and essayist

Unrest and Childhood.

Dean Spade photo

“Charity is system-affirming. It does nothing about the root causes of poverty, criminalization, and racism. It just treats a few of the symptoms selectively. Social justice work is about making it so that no one is poor, homeless, targeted by police, deportable, or exploited.”

Dean Spade (1977) American activist

“Having a Cause” versus Living in a Life Centered in Radical Transformation

Bertrand Russell photo

“There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Karl Dönitz photo

“By placing these people with foreign ideas in camps, German blood was saved. Would it have been better to have a civil war?”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

To Leon Goldensohn, May 2, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.

Related topics