Albert Schweitzer
He was an impressive person not only to the poor people he treated in equatorial Africa, but also to the animals he took in, from pelicans to pigs to abandoned baby gorillas.
He believed that our obligation to be ethical should never be abstract. That we should decide what we believe to be right conduct-in his case, a reverence for all life- and that, rather than go through life in a robotic way, we should really live it by being active participants.
He believed that our principles should compel us, even if it means sacrifice and self-discipline, to affect the changes in conduct that we should make and to persuade others to make them too.
In other words, not just to think about things, but to do things that help make the world all the better for our passing through it.
Schweitzer believed that it is only possible to be truly ethical when we obey the compunction to help all life, and to shrink from injuring anything that lives.
He thought it important not to ask how far this or that life deserves one's sympathy by virtue of being valuable or to what degree it suffers.
"I must interpret the life around me as I interpret the life that is my own. My life is full of meaning to me. The life around me must be full of significance to itself. If I am to expect others to respect my life, then i must respect the other life I see, however strange it may be to mine."
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i've gained 25 lbs in the past year. holy smokes.
He believed that our obligation to be ethical should never be abstract. That we should decide what we believe to be right conduct-in his case, a reverence for all life- and that, rather than go through life in a robotic way, we should really live it by being active participants.
He believed that our principles should compel us, even if it means sacrifice and self-discipline, to affect the changes in conduct that we should make and to persuade others to make them too.
In other words, not just to think about things, but to do things that help make the world all the better for our passing through it.
Schweitzer believed that it is only possible to be truly ethical when we obey the compunction to help all life, and to shrink from injuring anything that lives.
He thought it important not to ask how far this or that life deserves one's sympathy by virtue of being valuable or to what degree it suffers.
"I must interpret the life around me as I interpret the life that is my own. My life is full of meaning to me. The life around me must be full of significance to itself. If I am to expect others to respect my life, then i must respect the other life I see, however strange it may be to mine."
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i've gained 25 lbs in the past year. holy smokes.