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.

Just as white light consists of colored rays, so reverence for life contains all the components of ethics: love, kindliness, sympathy, empathy, peacefulness and power to forgive.

In case my life should end with the cannibals, I hope they will write on my tombstone, 'We have eaten Dr. Schweitzer. He was good to the end.'

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.

The gratitude ascending from man to God is the supreme transaction between earth and heaven.

The awareness that we are all human beings together has become lost in war and through politics.