One thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.
Interpretation
True happiness comes from serving others.
This quote reflects the idea that genuine happiness is not found through self-indulgence but through the act of serving others. Albert Schweitzer emphasizes that those who actively seek ways to help and uplift others will ultimately experience a deeper sense of fulfillment and joy in their lives.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a community service event to inspire volunteers.
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.
I wish I had thrown out the bathroom scale at age 16. Weighing yourself every morning is like waking up and asking Dick Cheney to validate your sense of inner worth.
I would challenge anybody in their darkest moment to write what they're grateful for, even stupid little things like the green grass that made them feel good, the friendly conversation they had with somebody on an alevator. You start to realize how rich you are.
White pudding and eggs and sausages and cups of tea! How simple and beautiful was life after all!
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
But I don't think of the future, or the past, I feast on the moment. This is the secret of happiness, but only reached now in middle age.
Happiness only real when shared.
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