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.
Albert SchweitzerRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of not compromising one's soul and integrity despite life's temptations.
Albert Schweitzer's quote reflects on the idea that life's challenges and temptations are inevitable, but the true measure of our actions is their impact on our inner self. It suggests that maintaining a healthy spirit and integrity is crucial, and that actions which harm the soul can lead to irreversible consequences that we may only understand in hindsight. Therefore, it urges us to prioritize the well-being of our spirit over external achievements or behaviors.
Themes
SoulTemptationsIntegrityHealthLifeConsequences
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about personal integrity.
More from Albert Schweitzer
All quotes →By ethical conduct toward all creatures, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the universe.
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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.
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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.
Albert SchweitzerRead
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.
Albert SchweitzerRead
Day by day we should weigh what we have granted to the spirit of the world against what we have denied to the spirit of Jesus, in thought and especially in deed.
Albert SchweitzerRead
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