“Reverence for life, veneratio vitæ, is the most direct and at the same time the profoundest achievement of my will-to-live.”
“Affirmation of the world, which means affirmation of the will-to-live that manifests itself around me, is only possible if I devote myself to other life.”
“Love . . . includes fellowship in suffering, in joy and in effort.”
“Let me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and further life it is bad to damage and destroy life.”
“In the past we have tried to make a distinction between animals which we acknowledge have some value and other which, having none, can be liquidated when we wish. This standard must be abandoned. Everything that lives has value simply as a living thing, as one of the manifestations of the mystery that is life.”
“Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.”
“I wanted to be a doctor that I might be able to work without having to talk because for years I had been giving myself out in words.”
“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.”
“Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal.”
“What does Reverence for Life say abut the relations between [humanity] and the animal world? Whenever I injury any kind of life I must be quite certain that it is necessary. I must never go beyond the unavoidable, not even in apparently insignificant things. The farmer who has mowed down a thousand flowers in his meadow in order to feed his cows must be careful on his way home not to strike the head off a single flower by the side of the road in idle amusement, for he thereby infringes on the law of life without being under the pressure of necessity.”
