There is much coldness among men because we do not dare to be as cordial as we really are.
Interpretation
People often hold back their warmth and kindness, leading to emotional distance.
This quote suggests that the emotional coldness perceived in human interactions arises from our hesitation to express genuine friendliness and openness. Albert Schweitzer emphasizes the importance of embracing our cordial nature and fostering connections by being more expressive rather than guarding our true feelings.
In practice
During a speech on the importance of community, this quote can highlight the need for deeper connections.
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.
Every person that comes into our life comes for a reason; some come to learn and others come to teach.
A child hasn't a grown-up person's appetite for affection. A little of it goes a long way with them; and they like a good imitation of it better than the real thing, as every nurse knows.
We've made houses for hatred. It's time we made a place where people's souls may be seen and made safe.
He breathed out the bitter air that makes women doubt everything, and I breathed it in, as I had always done. I expelled my dust, the powder of everything I had destroyed with doubt, and he pulled it into his lungs.
Men are allowed to have passion and commitment for their work... a woman is allowed that feeling for a man, but not her work.
It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch each other, and find sympathy. It is in our follies that we are one.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.