The ethic of Albert Schweitzer

We are born of other lives... We possess the capacities to bring still other lives into existence. So nature compels us to recognize the fact of mutual dependence, each life necessarily helping the other lives which are linked to it.
-- The Ethics of Reverence for Life, 1936
Profound love demands a deep conception, and out of this develops reverence for the mystery of life. It brings us close to all beings, to the smallest and the poorest, as well as all others. We reject the idea that man is 'master of all creatures', 'lord' above all others. We bow to reality. We can no longer say that there are senseless existences with which we can deal as we please. We recognize that all existence is a mystery, like our own existence.... My neighbour is a creature like myself, subject to the same joys, the same fears, and the idea of Reverence for Life gives us something more profound and mightier than the idea of humanism. It includes all living beings. -- Notes, Brussels, 1959