When I look back upon my early days, I am stirred by the
thought of the number of people whom I have to thank for what they gave me or
what they were to me. At the same time,
I am haunted by an oppressive consciousness of the little gratitude I really
showed them while I was young. How many
of them have said farewell to life without my having made clear to them what it
meant to me to receive from them so much kindness or so much care! Many a time have I, with a feeling of shame,
said quietly to myself over a grave the words which my mouth ought to have
spoken to the departed, while he was still in the flesh.
Albert Schweitzer, Memoirs of Childhood and Youth
