Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit.The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread.But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought.

—Albert Schweitzer

habit cruelty instincts thoughtlessness inhumanity

About Albert Schweitzer

Portrait of Albert Schweitzer

Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (German: [ˈalbɛʁt ˈʃvaɪtsɐ] ; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was a German polymath from Alsace. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. As a Lutheran minister, Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of the historical Jesus as depicted by the...

More quotations from Albert Schweitzer

Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.

—Albert Schweitzer

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be a saint.

—Albert Schweitzer

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.

—Albert Schweitzer

Just as the water of the streams we see is small in amount compared to that which flows underground, so the idealism which becomes visible is small in amount compared with what men and women bear locked in their hearts.… To unbind what is bound, to bring the underground waters to the surface: mankind is waiting and longing for such as can do that.

—Albert Schweitzer

heart mankind idealism longing water men and women

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

—Albert Schweitzer

More quotations tagged with “cruelty”

Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.

—Samuel Johnson in The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

attention love relationships chance happiness marriage cruelty conflict

As one reads history… one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalized by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.

history crime cruelty punishment community

If one person is unkind to an animal, it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.

—Ruth Harrison

kindness money animals cruelty commerce

Cruelty is easy, and it breeds only misery. Kindness is harder, and you have to be brave to give it. To be cruel, you can stay closed off from everyone, wear a mask, but to be kind, in essence, to show love, you have to make yourself vulnerable, show your true self to someone and open yourself up to rejection.

—L.H. Cosway in The Nature of Cruelty

love kindness rejection vulnerability misery cruelty bravery

The most appalling cruelties are committed by apparently virtuous governments in expectation of a great good to come, never learning that the evil done now is the sure destroyer of the expected good.

—Katherine Anne Porter

evil good government cruelty

History

7 Dec 2013 Added