Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Man can no longer live his life for himself alone. We realize that all life is valuable and that we are united to all this life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship to the universe.
Thinking about death... produces love for life. When we are familiar with death, we accept each week, each day, as a gift. Only if we are able thus to accept life bit by bit does it become precious.
You must learn to understand the secret of gratitude. It is more than just so-called virtue. It is revealed to you as a mysterious law of existence. In obedience to it we have to fulfill our destiny.
I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.
It is not enough to merely exist. It's not enough to say, 'I'm earning enough to live and support my family. I do my work well. I'm a good parent.' That's all very well. But you must do something more.
In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
There is within each of us a modulation, an inner exaltation, which lifts us above the buffetings with which events assail us. Likewise, it lifts us above dependence upon the gifts of events for our joy.
I look back upon my youth and realize how so many people gave me help, understanding, courage - very important things to me - and they never knew it. They entered into my life and became powers within me.
Wherever you turn, you can find someone who needs you. Even if it is a little thing, do something for which there is no pay but the privilege of doing it. Remember, you don't live in a world all of your own
A man who possesses a veneration of life will not simply say his prayers. He will throw himself into the battle to preserve life, if for no other reason than that he himself is an extension of life around him.
The thinking (person) must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another.
The future of civilization depends on our overcoming the meaninglessness and hopelessness which characterize the thoughts and convictions of men today, and reaching a state of fresh hope and fresh determination.
No ray of sunlight is ever lost, but the green which it awakes into existence needs time to sprout, and it is not always granted to the sower to see the harvest. All work that is worth anything is done in faith.
Who shall enumerate the many ways in which that costly piece of fixed capital, a human being , may be employed! More of him is wanted everywhere! Hunt, then, for some situation in which your humanity may be used.
I do not know what your destiny may be, but I do know this, that not one of you will find the happiness that each of you is seeking until you have first sought and found a way in which to unselfishly serve others.
Living truth is that alone which has its origins in thinking. Just as a tree bears year after year the same fruit which is each year new, so must all permanently valuable ideas be continually born again in thought.
Awakening of Western thought will not be complete until that thought steps outside itself and comes to an understanding with the search for a world-view as this manifests itself in the thought of mankind as a whole.
We are compelled by the commandment of love contained in our hearts and thought, and proclaimed by Jesus, to give rein to our natural sympathy for animals. We are also compelled to help them and spare them suffering.
Not one of us knows what effect his life produces, and what he gives to others; that is hidden from us and must remain so, though we are often allowed to see some little fraction of it, so that we may not lose courage.
Nature compels us to recognize the fact of mutual dependence, each life necessarily helping the other lives who are linked to it. In the very fibers of our being, we bear within ourselves the fact of the solidarity of life.
Most men are scantily nourished on a modicum of happiness and a number of empty thoughts which life lays on their plates. They are kept in the road of life through stern necessity by elemental duties which they cannot avoid.
Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. For remember, you don't live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too.
Faith which refuses to face indisputable facts is but little faith. Truth is always gain, however hard it is to accommodate ourselves to it. To linger in any kind of untruth proves to be a departure from the straight way of faith.
When people have light in themselves, it will shine out from them. Then we get to know each other as we walk together in the darkness, without needing to pass our hands over each other's faces, or to intrude into each other's hearts.
Cold completely introspective logic places a philosopher on the road to the abstract. Out of this empty, artificial act of thinking there can result, of course, nothing which bears on the relation of man to himself, and to the universe.
In modern European thought a tragedy is occurring in that the original bonds uniting the affirmative attitude towards the world with ethics are, by a slow but irresistible process, loosening and finally parting. Out of my life and Thought.
The fellowship of those who bear the mark of pain: who are the members of this Fellowship? Those who have learnt by experience what physical pain and bodily anguish mean, belong together all the world over; they are united by a secret bond.
Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.
Jesus means something to our world because a mighty spiritual force streams forth from him and flows through our being also. This fact can neither be shaken nor confirmed by any historical discovery. It is the solid foundation of Christianity.
Ethics are complete, profound and alive only when addressed to all living beings. Only then are we in spiritual connection with the world. Any philosophy not representing this, not based on the indefinite totality of life, is bound to disappear.
The great fault of all ethics hitherto has been that they believed themselves to have to deal only with the relations of man to man. In reality, however, the question is what is his attitude to the world and all life that comes within his reach.
The friend of nature is the man who feels himself inwardly united with everything that lives in nature, who shares in the fate of all creatures, helps them when he can in their pain and need, and as far as possible avoids injuring or taking life.
We are gripped by God’s will of love, and must help carry out that will in this world, in small things as in great things, in saving as in pardoning. To be glad instruments of God’s love in this imperfect world is the service to which we are called.
Affirmation of life is the spiritual act by which man ceases to live unreflectively and begins to devote himself to his life with reverence in order to raise it to its true value. To affirm life is to deepen, to make more inward, and to exalt the will.
You must not expect anything from others. It's you, of yourself, of whom you must ask a lot. Only from oneself has one the right to ask everything and anything. This way it's up to you - your own choices - what you get from others remains a present, a gift.
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.
If you are called upon to play a church service, it is a greater honor than if you were to play a concert on the finest organ in the world... Thank God each time when you are privileged to sit before the organ console and assist in the worship of the Almighty.
What really matters is that we should all of us realize that we are guilty of inhumanity. The horror of this realization should shakes us out of our lethargy so that we can direct our hopes and our intentions to the coming of an era in which war will have no place.
The great secret of success is to go through life as a person who never gets used up. That is possible for those who never argue and strive with people and facts, but in all experience retires upon themselves, and look for the ultimate cause of things in themselves.
My view is that we stand up for treating the animals in a considerate way, for completely renouncing the eating of meat and also for speaking out against it. This is what I do myself. And in this way many a one becomes aware of a problem that was put forward so late.
The quiet conscience is the invention of the devil. No one of us may permit any preventable pain to be inflicted even though the responsibility for that pain is not ours. No one may shut his eyes and think that the pain which is therefore not visible, is non-existent.
I used to suffer particularly because the poor animals must endure so much pain and want. The sight of an old, limping horse being dragged along by one man while another man struck him with a stick he was being driven to the Colmar slaughterhouse - haunted me for weeks.
Pablo Casals is a great musician in all he does: a cellist without equal, and extraordinary conductor and composer with something to say. I have been profoundly impressed by all I have heard of his work, but he is a musician of this stature because he is also a great man.
We cannot abdicate our conscience to an organization, nor to a government. 'Am I my brother's keeper?' Most certainly I am! I cannot escape my responsibility by saying the State will do all that is necessary. It is a tragedy that nowadays so many think and feel otherwise.
The witch doctor succeeds for the same reason all the rest of us succeed. Each patient carries his or her own doctor inside him or her. They come to us not knowing that truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work.
When man learns to respect even the smallest being of creation...nobody has to teach him to love his fellow man. Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.
All art speaks in signs and symbols. No one can explain how it happens that the artist can waken to life in us the existence that he has seen and lives through. No artistic speech is the adequate expression of what it represents; its vital force comes from what is unspoken in it.
The time will come when public opinion will no longer tolerate amusements based on the mistreatment and killing of animals. The time will come, but when? When will we reach the point that hunting, the pleasure in killing animals for sport, will be regarded as a mental aberration?
Your life is something opaque, not transparent, as long as you look at it in an ordinary human way. But if you hold it up against the light of God's goodness, it shines and turns transparent, radiant and bright. And then you ask yourself in amazement: Is this really my own life I see before me?
I do not believe that we can put into anyone ideas which are not in him already. As a rule there are in everyone all sorts of good ideas, ready like tinder. But much of this tinder catches fire, or catches it successfully, only when it meets some flame or spark from outside, i.e., from some other person.