Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer see Albert Schweitzer (film). For the American artist, see Albert Schweitzer (artist). The Reverend Albert Schweitzer OM Schweitzer in 1955 Born 14 January 1875 Kaysersberg, Alsace–Lorraine, German Empire Died 4 September 1965 (aged 90) Lambaréné, Gabon Citizenship Germany (until 1919) France (from 1919) Alma mater University of Strasbourg Known for Quest for the historical Jesus Reverence for Life Consistent "thorough-going" eschatology (posthumously) Spouse Helene Bresslau ​ ​(m. 1912; died 1957)​ Awards Goethe Prize (1928) Nobel Peace Prize (1952) James Cook Medal (1959) Scientific career Fields Medicinemusicologyphilosophytheology Doctoral advisor Theobald Ziegler Heinrich Julius Holtzmann Robert Wollenberg [de] Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer OM (German: [ˈalbɛʁt ˈʃvaɪ̯t͡sɐ] ⓘ; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was an Alsatian polymath. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. A Lutheran minister, Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of Jesus as depicted by the historical-critical method current at this time, as well as the traditional Christian view. His contributions to the interpretation of Pauline Christianity concern the role of Paul's mysticism of "being in Christ" as primary and the doctrine of justification by faith as secondary. He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of "Reverence for Life",[1] becoming the eighth Frenchman to be awarded that prize. His philosophy was expressed in many ways, but most famously in founding and sustaining the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné, French Equatorial Africa (now Gabon). As a music scholar and organist, he studied the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach and influenced the Organ Reform Movement (Orgelbewegung). Early years Albert Schweitzer's birthplace in Kaysersberg, now in Alsace in France Schweitzer in 1912. Oil on canvas painting by Émile Schneider (Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) Schweitzer was born 14 January 1875 in Kaysersberg in Alsace, in what had less than four years previously become the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine in the German Empire after being French for more than two centuries; he later became a citizen of France after World War I, when Alsace became French territory again. He was the son of Adèle (née Schillinger) and Louis Théophile Schweitzer.[2][3] He spent his childhood in Gunsbach, also in Alsace, where his father, the local Lutheran-Evangelical pastor of the EPCAAL, taught him how to play music.[4] The tiny village would become home to the Association Internationale Albert Schweitzer (AIAS).[5] The medieval parish church of Gunsbach was shared by the Protestant and Catholic congregations, which held their prayers in different areas at different times on Sundays. This compromise arose after the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years' War. Schweitzer, the pastor's son, grew up in this exceptional environment of religious tolerance, and developed the belief that true Christianity should always work towards a unity of faith and purpose.[6] Schweitzer's first language was the Alsatian dialect of German. At the Mulhouse gymnasium he received his "Abitur" (the certificate at the end of secondary education) in 1893. He studied organ in Mulhouse from 1885 to 1893 with Eugène Munch, organist at the Protestant cathedral, who inspired Schweitzer with his enthusiasm for the music of German composer Richard Wagner.[7] In 1893, he played for the French organist Charles-Marie Widor (at Saint-Sulpice, Paris), for whom Johann Sebastian Bach's organ music contained a mystic sense of the eternal. Widor, deeply impressed, agreed to teach Schweitzer without fee, and a great and influential friendship thus began.[8] From 1893 Schweitzer studied Protestant theology at the Kaiser Wilhelm University in Strasbourg. There he also received instruction in piano and counterpoint from professor Gustav Jacobsthal, and associated closely with Ernest Munch, the brother of his former teacher, organist of St William church, who was also a passionate admirer of J. S. Bach's music.[9] Schweitzer served his one-year compulsory military service in 1894. Schweitzer saw many operas of Richard Wagner in Strasbourg (under Otto Lohse) and in 1896 he managed to afford a visit to the Bayreuth Festival to see Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal, both of which impressed him. In 1898, he returned to Paris to write a PhD dissertation on The Religious Philosophy of Kant at the Sorbonne, and to study in earnest with Widor. Here he often met with the elderly Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. He also studied piano at that time with Marie Jaëll.[10] In 1899, Schweitzer spent the summer semester at the University of Berlin and eventually obtained his theology degree at the University of Strasbourg.[11][12][13][14] He published his PhD thesis at the University of Tübingen in 1899.[15] In 1905, Schweitzer began his study of medicine at the University of Strasbourg, culminating in the degree of M.D. in 1913.[11][14] Music Schweitzer rapidly gained prominence as a musical scholar and organist, dedicated also to the rescue, restoration and study of historic pipe organs. With theological insight, he interpreted the use of pictorial and symbolical representation in J. S. Bach's religious music. In 1899, he astonished Widor by explaining figures and motifs in Bach's Chorale Preludes as painter-like tonal and rhythmic imagery illustrating themes from the words of the hymns on which they were based. They were works of devotional contemplation in which the musical design corresponded to literary ideas, conceived visually. Widor had not grown up with knowledge of the old Lutheran hymns.[16] The exposition of these ideas, encouraged by Widor and Munch, became Schweitzer's last task, and appeared in the masterly study J. S. Bach: Le Musicien-Poète, written in French and published in 1905. There was great demand for a German edition, but, instead of translating it, he decided to rewrite it.[17] The result was two volumes (J. S. Bach), which were published in 1908 and translated into English by Ernest Newman in 1911.[18] Ernst Cassirer, a contemporaneous German philosopher, called it "one of the best interpretations" of Bach.[19] During its preparation Schweitzer became a friend of Cosima Wagner, then resident in Strasbourg, with whom he had many theological and musical conversations, exploring his view of Bach's descriptive music, and playing the major Chorale Preludes for her at the Temple Neuf.[20] Schweitzer's interpretative approach greatly influenced the modern understanding of Bach's music. He became a welcome guest at the Wagners' home, Wahnfried.[21] He also corresponded with composer Clara Faisst, who became a good friend.[22] The Choir Organ at St Thomas' Church, Strasbourg, designed in 1905 on principles defined by Schweitzer His pamphlet "The Art of Organ Building and Organ Playing in Germany and France" (1906,[23] republished with an appendix on the state of the organ-building industry in 1927) effectively launched the 20th-century Orgelbewegung, which turned away from romantic extremes and rediscovered baroque principles—although this sweeping reform movement in organ building eventually went further than Schweitzer had intended. In 1909, he addressed the Third Congress of the International Society of Music at Vienna on the subject. Having circulated a questionnaire among players and organ-builders in several European countries, he produced a very considered report.[24] This provided the basis for the International Regulations for Organ Building. He envisaged instruments in which the French late-romantic full-organ sound should work integrally with the English and German romantic reed pipes, and with the classical Alsace Silbermann organ resources and baroque flue pipes, all in registers regulated (by stops) to access distinct voices in fugue or counterpoint capable of combination without loss of distinctness: different voices singing the same music together. Schweitzer also studied piano under Isidor Philipp, head of the piano department at the Paris Conservatory. In 1905, Widor and Schweitzer were among the six musicians who founded the Paris Bach Society, a choir dedicated to performing J. S. Bach's music, for whose concerts Schweitzer took the organ part regularly until 1913. He was also appointed organist for the Bach Concerts of the Orféo Català at Barcelona, Spain, and often travelled there for that purpose.[16] He and Widor collaborated on a new edition of Bach's organ works, with detailed analysis of each work in three languages (English, French, German). Schweitzer, who insisted that the score should show Bach's notation with no additional markings, wrote the commentaries for the Preludes and Fugues, and Widor those for the Sonatas and Concertos: six volumes were published in 1912–14. Three more, to contain the Chorale Preludes with Schweitzer's analyses, were to be worked on in Africa, but these were never completed, perhaps because for him they were inseparable from his evolving theological thought.[25] On departure for Lambaréné in 1913, he was presented with a pedal piano, a piano with pedal attachments to operate like an organ pedal-keyboard.[26] Built especially for the tropics, it was delivered by river in a huge dug-out canoe to Lambaréné, packed in a zinc-lined case. At first, he regarded his new life as a renunciation of his art, and fell out of practice, but after some time he resolved to study and learn by heart the works of Bach, Mendelssohn, Widor, César Franck, and Max Reger systematically.[27] It became his custom to play during the lunch hour and on Sunday afternoons. Schweitzer's pedal piano was still in use at Lambaréné in 1946.[28] According to a visitor, Dr. Gaine Cannon, of Balsam Grove, N.C., the old, dilapidated piano-organ was still being played by Dr. Schweitzer in 1962, and stories told that "his fingers were still lively" on the old instrument at 88 years of age. Sir Donald Tovey dedicated his conjectural completion of Bach's The Art of Fugue to Schweitzer. Schweitzer's recordings of organ-music, and his innovative recording technique, are described below. One of his pupils was conductor and composer Hans Münch. Theology Saint-Nicolas, Strasbourg In 1899, Schweitzer became a deacon at the church of Saint Nicholas in Strasbourg. In 1900, with the completion of his licentiate in theology, he was ordained as curate, and that year he witnessed the Oberammergau Passion Play. In the following year he became provisional Principal of the Theological College of Saint Thomas, from which he had just graduated, and in 1903 his appointment was made permanent.[note 1] In 1906, he published Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung [History of Life-of-Jesus research]. This book, which established his reputation, was first published in English in 1910 as The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Under this title the book became famous in the English-speaking world. A second German edition was published in 1913, containing theologically significant revisions and expansions: this revised edition did not appear in English until 2001. In 1931, he published Mystik des Apostels Paulus (The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle);[34] a second edition was published in 1953. The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906) Main article: The Quest of the Historical Jesus In The Quest, Schweitzer criticised the liberal view put forward by liberal and romantic scholars during the first quest for the historical Jesus. Schweitzer maintained that the life of Jesus must be interpreted in the light of Jesus' own convictions, which reflected late Jewish eschatology and apocalypticism. Schweitzer writes: The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the kingdom of God, who founded the kingdom of heaven upon earth and died to give his work its final consecration never existed. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in a historical garb. This image has not been destroyed from outside; it has fallen to pieces...[35] Instead of these liberal and romantic views, Schweitzer wrote that Jesus and his followers expected the imminent end of the world.[36] Schweitzer cross-referenced the many New Testament verses declaring imminent fulfilment of the promise of the World's ending within the lifetime of Jesus's original followers.[37][failed verification] He wrote that in his view, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus speaks of a "tribulation", with his "coming in the clouds with great power and glory" (St. Mark), and states that it will happen but it has not: "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled" (St. Matthew, 24:34) or, "have taken place" (Luke 21:32). Similarly, in 1st Peter 1:20, "Christ, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you", as well as "But the end of all things is at hand" (1 Peter 4:7) and "Surely, I come quickly." (Revelation 22:20). The cover of Albert Schweitzer's The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle Schweitzer concluded his treatment of Jesus with what has been called the most famous words of twentieth-century theology: "He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side, He came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: 'Follow thou me' and sets us to the task which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is."[38] The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (1931) In The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, Schweitzer first distinguishes between two categories of mysticism: primitive and developed.[39] Primitive mysticism "has not yet risen to a conception of the universal, and is still confined to naive views of earthly and super-earthly, temporal and eternal". Additionally, he argues that this view of a "union with the divinity, brought about by efficacious ceremonies, is found even in quite primitive religions".[39] On the other hand, a more developed form of mysticism can be found in the Greek mystery-cults that were popular in first-century A.D. society. These included the cults of Attis, Osiris, and Mithras. A developed form of mysticism is attained when the "conception of the universal is reached and a man reflects upon his relation to the totality of being and to Being in itself". Schweitzer claims that this form of mysticism is more intellectual and can be found "among the Brahmans and in the Buddha, in Platonism, in Stoicism, in Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and Hegel".[40] Next, Schweitzer poses the question: "Of what precise kind then is the mysticism of Paul?" He locates Paul between the two extremes of primitive mysticism and developed mysticism. Paul stands high above primitive mysticism, due to his intellectual writings, but never speaks of being one with God or being in God. Instead, he conceives of sonship to God as "mediated and effected by means of the mystical union with Christ".[41] He summarizes Pauline mysticism as "being in Christ" rather than "being in God". Paul's imminent eschatology (from his background in Jewish eschatology) causes him to believe that the kingdom of God has not yet come and that Christians are now living in the time of Christ. Christ-mysticism holds the field until God-mysticism becomes possible, which is in the near future.[42] Therefore, Schweitzer argues that Paul is the only theologian who does not claim that Christians can have an experience of "being-in-God". Rather, Paul uses the phrase "being-in-Christ" to illustrate how Jesus is a mediator between the Christian community and God. Additionally, Schweitzer explains how the experience of "being-in-Christ" is not a "static partaking in the spiritual being of Christ, but as the real co-experiencing of His dying and rising again". The "realistic" partaking in the mystery of Jesus is only possible within the solidarity of the Christian community.[42] One of Schweitzer's major arguments in The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle is that Paul's mysticism, marked by his phrase "being in Christ", gives the clue to the whole of Pauline theology. Rather than reading justification by faith as the main topic of Pauline thought, which has been the most popular argument set forward by Martin Luther, Schweitzer argues that Paul's emphasis was on the mystical union with God by "being in Christ". Jaroslav Pelikan, in his foreword to The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, points out that: the relation between the two doctrines was quite the other way around: 'The doctrine of the redemption, which is mentally appropriated through faith, is only a fragment from the more comprehensive mystical redemption-doctrine, which Paul has broken off and polished to give him the particular refraction which he requires.[43] Paul's "realism" versus Hellenistic "symbolism" Schweitzer contrasts Paul's "realistic" dying and rising with Christ to the "symbolism" of Hellenism. Although Paul is widely influenced by Hellenistic thought, he is not controlled by it. Schweitzer explains that Paul focused on the idea of fellowship with the divine being through the "realistic" dying and rising with Christ rather than the "symbolic" Hellenistic act of becoming like Christ through deification.[44] After baptism, Christians are continually renewed throughout their lifetimes due to participation in the dying and rising with Christ (most notably through the Sacraments). On the other hand, the Hellenist "lives on the store of experience which he acquired in the initiation" and is not continually affected by a shared communal experience.[45] Another major difference between Paul's "realism" and Hellenistic "symbolism" is the exclusive nature of the former and the inclusive nature of the latter. Schweitzer unabashedly emphasizes the fact that "Paul's thought follows predestinarian lines".[46] He explains, "only the man who is elected thereto can enter into relation with God".[47] Although every human being is invited to become a Christian, only those who have undergone the initiation into the Christian community through baptism can share in the "realistic" dying and rising with Christ. Medicine At the age of 30, in 1905, Schweitzer answered the call of The Society of the Evangelist Missions of Paris, which was looking for a physician. The committee of this missionary society was not ready to accept his offer, considering his Lutheran theology to be "incorrect".[48] He could easily have obtained a place in a German evangelical mission, but wished to follow the original call despite the doctrinal difficulties. Amid a hail of protests from his friends, family and colleagues, he resigned his post and re-entered the university as a student in a three-year course towards the degree of Doctorate in Medicine, a subject in which he had little knowledge or previous aptitude. He planned to spread the Gospel by the example of his Christian labour of healing, rather than through the verbal process of preaching, and believed that this service should be acceptable within any branch of Christian teaching. Even in his study of medicine, and through his clinical course, Schweitzer pursued the ideal of the philosopher-scientist. By extreme application and hard work, he completed his studies successfully at the end of 1911. His medical degree dissertation was another work on the historical Jesus, Die psychiatrische Beurteilung Jesu. Darstellung und Kritik[49] [The psychiatric evaluation of Jesus. Description and criticism] (published in English in 1948 as The Psychiatric Study of Jesus. Exposition and Criticism[50]). He defended Jesus' mental health in it.[51] In June 1912, he married Helene Bresslau, municipal inspector for orphans and daughter of the Jewish pan-Germanist historian Harry Bresslau.[52] In 1912, now armed with a medical degree, Schweitzer made a definite proposal to go as a physician to work at his own expense in the Paris Missionary Society's mission at Lambaréné on the Ogooué river, in what is now Gabon, in Africa (then a French colony). He refused to attend a committee to inquire into his doctrine, but met each committee member personally and was at last accepted. Through concerts and other fund-raising, he was ready to equip a small hospital.[53] In early 1913, he and his wife set off to establish a hospital (the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer) near an existing mission post. The site was nearly 200 miles (14 days by raft[54]) upstream from the mouth of the Ogooué at Port Gentil (Cape Lopez) (and so accessible to external communications), but downstream of most tributaries, so that internal communications within Gabon converged towards Lambaréné. The catchment area of the Ogooué River occupies most of Gabon. Lambaréné is marked centre left. In the first nine months, he and his wife had about 2,000 patients to examine, some travelling many days and hundreds of kilometres to reach him. In addition to injuries, he was often treating severe sandflea and crawcraw infections, yaws, tropical eating sores, heart disease, tropical dysentery, tropical malaria, sleeping sickness, leprosy, fevers, strangulated hernias, necrosis, abdominal tumours and chronic constipation and nicotine poisoning, while also attempting to deal with deliberate poisonings, fetishism and fear of cannibalism among the Mbahouin. Schweitzer's wife, Helene Schweitzer, served as an anaesthetist for surgical operations. After briefly occupying a shed formerly used as a chicken hut, in late 1913 they built their first hospital of corrugated iron, with a consulting room and operating theatre and with a dispensary and sterilising room. The waiting room and dormitory were built, like native huts, of unhewn logs along a path leading to the boat landing. The Schweitzers had their own bungalow and employed as their assistant Joseph, a French-speaking Mpongwe, who first came to Lambaréné as a patient.[55][56] After World War I broke out in July 1914, Schweitzer and his wife, German citizens in a French colony when the countries were at war, were put under supervision by the French military at Lambaréné, where Schweitzer continued his work.[57] In 1917, exhausted by over four years' work and by tropical anaemia, they were taken to Bordeaux and interned first in Garaison and then from March 1918 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. In July 1918, after being transferred to his home in Alsace, he was a free man again. At this time Schweitzer, born a German citizen, had his parents' former (pre-1871) French citizenship reinstated and became a French citizen. Then, working as medical assistant and assistant-pastor in Strasbourg, he advanced his project on the philosophy of civilization, which had occupied his mind since 1900. By 1920, his health recovering, he was giving organ recitals and doing other fund-raising work to repay borrowings and raise funds for returning to Gabon. In 1922, he delivered the Dale Memorial Lectures in the University of Oxford, and from these in the following year appeared Volumes I and II of his great work, The Decay and Restoration of Civilization and Civilization and Ethics. The two remaining volumes, on The World-View of Reverence for Life and a fourth on the Civilized State, were never completed. In 1924, Schweitzer returned to Africa without his wife, but with an Oxford undergraduate, Noel Gillespie, as his assistant. Everything was heavily decayed, and building and doctoring progressed together for months. He now had salvarsan for treating syphilitic ulcers and framboesia. Additional medical staff, nurse (Miss) Kottmann and Dr. Victor Nessmann,[58] joined him in 1924, and Dr. Mark Lauterberg in 1925; the growing hospital was manned by native orderlies. Later Dr. Trensz replaced Nessmann, and Martha Lauterberg and Hans Muggenstorm joined them. Joseph also returned. In 1925–6, new hospital buildings were constructed, and also a ward for white patients, so that the site became like a village. The onset of famine and a dysentery epidemic created fresh problems. Much of the building work was carried out with the help of local people and patients. Drug advances for sleeping sickness included Germanin and tryparsamide [de; fi; it]. Trensz conducted experiments showing that the non-amoebic strain of dysentery was caused by a paracholera vibrion (facultative anaerobic bacteria). With the new hospital built and the medical team established, Schweitzer returned to Europe in 1927, this time leaving a functioning hospital at work. He was there again from 1929 to 1932. Gradually his opinions and concepts became acknowledged, not only in Europe, but worldwide. There was a further period of work in 1935. In January 1937, he returned again to Lambaréné and continued working there throughout World War II. Hospital conditions The journalist James Cameron visited Lambaréné in 1953 (when Schweitzer was 78) and found significant flaws in the practices and attitudes of Schweitzer and his staff. The hospital suffered from squalor and was without modern amenities, and Schweitzer had little contact with the local people.[59] Cameron did not make public what he had seen at the time: according to a BBC dramatisation, he made the unusual journalistic decision to withhold the story, and resisted the expressed wish of his employers to publish an exposé.[60] The poor conditions of the hospital in Lambaréné were also famously criticized by Nigerian professor and novelist Chinua Achebe in his essay on Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness: "In a comment which has often been quoted Schweitzer says: 'The African is indeed my brother but my junior brother.' And so he proceeded to build a hospital appropriate to the needs of junior brothers with standards of hygiene reminiscent of medical practice in the days before the germ theory of disease came into being."[61] Schweitzer's biographer Edgar Berman, who was a volunteer surgeon at Lambarene for several months and had extended conversations with Schweitzer, has a different perspective.[62] Schweitzer felt that patients were better off, and the hospital functioned better given the severe lack of funding, if patients' families lived on the hospital grounds during treatment. Surgical survival rates were, Berman asserts, as high as in many fully-equipped western hospitals. The volume of patients needing care, the difficulty of obtaining materials and supplies, and the scarcity of trained medical staff willing to work long hours in the remote setting for almost no pay all argued for a spartan setting with an emphasis on high medical standards nevertheless. Schweitzer's views Colonialism Schweitzer considered his work as a medical missionary in Africa to be his response to Jesus' call to become "fishers of men". Who can describe the injustice and cruelties that in the course of centuries they [the coloured peoples] have suffered at the hands of Europeans?... If a record could be compiled of all that has happened between the white and the coloured races, it would make a book containing numbers of pages which the reader would have to turn over unread because their contents would be too horrible. Schweitzer was one of colonialism's harshest critics. In a sermon that he preached on 6 January 1905, before he had told anyone of his plans to dedicate the rest of his life to work as a physician in Africa, he said:[63] Our culture divides people into two classes: civilized men, a title bestowed on the persons who do the classifying; and others, who have only the human form, who may perish or go to the dogs for all the 'civilized men' care. Oh, this 'noble' culture of ours! It speaks so piously of human dignity and human rights and then disregards this dignity and these rights of countless millions and treads them underfoot, only because they live overseas or because their skins are of different colour or because they cannot help themselves. This culture does not know how hollow and miserable and full of glib talk it is, how common it looks to those who follow it across the seas and see what it has done there, and this culture has no right to speak of personal dignity and human rights... I will not enumerate all the crimes that have been committed under the pretext of justice. People robbed native inhabitants of their land, made slaves of them, let loose the scum of mankind upon them. Think of the atrocities that were perpetrated upon people made subservient to us, how systematically we have ruined them with our alcoholic 'gifts', and everything else we have done... We decimate them, and then, by the stroke of a pen, we take their land so they have nothing left at all... If all this oppression and all this sin and shame are perpetrated under the eye of the German God, or the American God, or the British God, and if our states do not feel obliged first to lay aside their claim to be 'Christian'—then the name of Jesus is blasphemed and made a mockery. And the Christianity of our states is blasphemed and made a mockery before those poor people. The name of Jesus has become a curse, and our Christianity—yours and mine—has become a falsehood and a disgrace, if the crimes are not atoned for in the very place where they were instigated. For every person who committed an atrocity in Jesus' name, someone must step in to help in Jesus' name; for every person who robbed, someone must bring a replacement; for everyone who cursed, someone must bless. And now, when you speak about missions, let this be your message: We must make atonement for all the terrible crimes we read of in the newspapers. We must make atonement for the still worse ones, which we do not read about in the papers, crimes that are shrouded in the silence of the jungle night ... Paternalism Schweitzer was nonetheless still sometimes accused of being paternalistic in his attitude towards Africans.[64] For instance, he thought that Gabonese independence came too early, without adequate education or accommodation to local circumstances. Edgar Berman quotes Schweitzer as having said in 1960, "No society can go from the primeval directly to an industrial state without losing the leavening that time and an agricultural period allow."[65] Schweitzer believed dignity and respect must be extended to blacks, while also sometimes characterizing them as children.[66] He summarized his views on European-African relations by saying "With regard to the negroes, then, I have coined the formula: 'I am your brother, it is true, but your elder brother.'"[66] Chinua Achebe has criticized him for this characterization, though Achebe acknowledges that Schweitzer's use of the word "brother" at all was, for a European of the early 20th century, an unusual expression of human solidarity between Europeans and Africans.[61] Schweitzer eventually emended and complicated this notion with his later statement that "The time for speaking of older and younger brothers has passed".[67] American journalist John Gunther visited Lambaréné in the 1950s and reported Schweitzer's patronizing attitude towards Africans. He also noted the lack of Africans trained to be skilled workers.[68] By comparison, his English contemporary Albert Ruskin Cook in Uganda had been training nurses and midwives since the 1910s, and had published a manual of midwifery in the local language of Luganda.[69] After three decades in Africa, Schweitzer still depended on Europe for nurses.[70] Reverence for life Main article: Reverence for Life Schweitzer in 1955 The keynote of Schweitzer's personal philosophy (which he considered to be his greatest contribution to mankind) was the idea of Reverence for Life (Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben). He thought that Western civilization was decaying because it had abandoned affirmation of life as its ethical foundation. In the Preface to Civilization and Ethics (1923) he argued that Western philosophy from Descartes to Kant had set out to explain the objective world expecting that humanity would be found to have a special meaning within it. But no such meaning was found, and the rational, life-affirming optimism of the Age of Enlightenment began to evaporate. A rift opened between this world-view, as material knowledge, and the life-view, understood as Will, expressed in the pessimist philosophies from Schopenhauer onward. Scientific materialism (advanced by Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin) portrayed an objective world process devoid of ethics, entirely an expression of the will-to-live. Schweitzer wrote, "True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness, and this may be formulated as follows: 'I am life which wills to live, and I exist in the midst of life which wills to live.'"[71] In nature one form of life must always prey upon another. However, human consciousness holds an awareness of, and sympathy for, the will of other beings to live. An ethical human strives to escape from this contradiction so far as possible. Though we cannot perfect the endeavour we should strive for it: the will-to-live constantly renews itself, for it is both an evolutionary necessity and a spiritual phenomenon. Life and love are rooted in this same principle, in a personal spiritual relationship to the universe. Ethics themselves proceed from the need to respect the wish of other beings to exist as one does towards oneself. Even so, Schweitzer found many instances in world religions and philosophies in which the principle was denied, not least in the European Middle Ages, and in the Indian Brahminic philosophy. For Schweitzer, mankind had to accept that objective reality is ethically neutral. It could then affirm a new Enlightenment through spiritual rationalism, by giving priority to volition or ethical will as the primary meaning of life. Mankind had to choose to create the moral structures of civilization: the world-view must derive from the life-view, not vice versa. Respect for life, overcoming coarser impulses and hollow doctrines, leads the individual to live in the service of other people and of every living creature. In contemplation of the will-to-life, respect for the life of others becomes the highest principle and the defining purpose of humanity.[72] Such was the theory which Schweitzer sought to put into practice in his own life. According to some authors, Schweitzer's thought, and specifically his development of reverence for life, was influenced by Indian religious thought and in particular the Jain principle of ahimsa, or non-violence.[73] Albert Schweitzer noted the contribution of Indian influence in his book Indian Thought and Its Development:[74] The laying down of the commandment to not kill and to not damage is one of the greatest events in the spiritual history of mankind. Starting from its principle, founded on world and life denial, of abstention from action, ancient Indian thought – and this is a period when in other respects ethics have not progressed very far – reaches the tremendous discovery that ethics know no bounds. So far as we know, this is for the first time clearly expressed by Jainism. Further on ahimsa and the reverence for life in the same book, he elaborates on the ancient Indian didactic work of the Tirukkural, which he observed that, like the Buddha and the Bhagavad Gita, "stands for the commandment not to kill and not to damage".[75][76] Translating several couplets from the work, he remarked that the Kural insists on the idea that "good must be done for its own sake" and said, "There hardly exists in the literature of the world a collection of maxims in which we find so much lofty wisdom."[75][76] Later life The Schweitzer house and Museum at Königsfeld in the Black Forest After the birth of their daughter (Rhena Schweitzer Miller), Albert's wife, Helene Schweitzer was no longer able to live in Lambaréné due to her health. In 1923, the family moved to Königsfeld im Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg, where he was building a house for the family. This house is now maintained as a Schweitzer museum.[77] Albert Schweitzer's house at Gunsbach, now a museum and archive Albert Schweitzer Memorial and Museum in Weimar (1984) From 1939 to 1948, he stayed in Lambaréné, unable to go back to Europe because of the war. Three years after the end of World War II, in 1948, he returned for the first time to Europe and kept travelling back and forth (and once to the US) as long as he was able. During his return visits to his home village of Gunsbach, Schweitzer continued to make use of the family house, which after his death became an archive and museum to his life and work. His life was portrayed in the 1952 movie Il est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer, starring Pierre Fresnay as Albert Schweitzer and Jeanne Moreau as his nurse Marie. Schweitzer inspired actor Hugh O'Brian when O'Brian visited in Africa. O'Brian returned to the United States and founded the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Foundation (HOBY). Albert Schweitzer Monument in Wagga Wagga, Australia Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize of 1952,[78] accepting the prize with the speech, "The Problem of Peace".[79] With the $33,000 prize money, he started the leprosarium at Lambaréné.[14] From 1952 until his death he worked against nuclear tests and nuclear weapons with Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn and Bertrand Russell. In 1957 and 1958, he broadcast four speeches over Radio Oslo which were published in Peace or Atomic War. In 1957, Schweitzer was one of the founders of The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. On 23 April 1957, Schweitzer made his "Declaration of Conscience" speech; it was broadcast to the world over Radio Oslo, pleading for the abolition of nuclear weapons. His speech ended, "The end of further experiments with atom bombs would be like the early sunrays of hope which suffering humanity is longing for."[80] Weeks prior to his death, an American film crew was allowed to visit Schweitzer and Drs. Muntz and Friedman, both Holocaust survivors, to record his work and daily life at the hospital. The film The Legacy of Albert Schweitzer, narrated by Henry Fonda, was produced by Warner Brothers and aired once. It resides in their vault today in deteriorating condition. Although several attempts have been made to restore and re-air the film, all access has been denied.[81] In 1955, he was made an honorary member of the Order of Merit (OM) by Queen Elizabeth II.[82] He was also a chevalier of the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem. Schweitzer's grave in Lambaréné, marked by a cross he made himself. Schweitzer died on 4 September 1965 at his beloved hospital in Lambaréné, now in independent Gabon. His grave, on the banks of the Ogooué River, is marked by a cross he made himself. His cousin Anne-Marie Schweitzer Sartre was the mother of Jean-Paul Sartre. Her father, Charles Schweitzer, was the older brother of Albert Schweitzer's father, Louis Théophile.[83][better source needed] Schweitzer is often cited in vegetarian literature as being an advocate of vegetarianism in his later years.[84][85][86] Schweitzer was not a vegetarian in his earlier life. For example, in 1950, biographer Magnus C. Ratter commented that Schweitzer never "commit[ted] himself to the anti-vivisection, vegetarian, or pacifist positions, though his thought leads in this direction".[87] Biographer James Bentley has written that Schweitzer became a vegetarian after his wife's death in 1957 and he was "living almost entirely on lentil soup".[88] In contrast to this, historian David N. Stamos has written that Schweitzer was not a vegetarian in his personal life nor imposed it on his missionary hospital but he did help animals and was opposed to hunting.[89] Stamos noted that Schweitzer held the view that evolution ingrained humans with an instinct for meat so it was useless in trying to deny it.[89] The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship was founded in 1940 by Schweitzer to unite US supporters in filling the gap in support for his Hospital when his European supply lines were cut off by war, and continues to support the Lambaréné Hospital today. Schweitzer considered his ethic of Reverence for Life, not his hospital, his most important legacy, saying that his Lambaréné Hospital was just "my own improvisation on the theme of Reverence for Life. Everyone can have their own Lambaréné". Today ASF helps large numbers of young Americans in health-related professional fields find or create "their own Lambaréné" in the US or internationally. ASF selects and supports nearly 250 new US and Africa Schweitzer Fellows each year from over 100 of the leading US schools of medicine, nursing, public health, and every other field with some relation to health (including music, law, and divinity). The peer-supporting lifelong network of "Schweitzer Fellows for Life" numbered over 2,000 members in 2008, and is growing by nearly 1,000 every four years. Nearly 150 of these Schweitzer Fellows have served at the Hospital in Lambaréné, for three-month periods during their last year of medical school.[90] Schweitzer eponyms Schweitzer's writings and life are often quoted,[91] resulting in a number of eponyms, such as the 'Schweitzer technique' (discussed below), and the 'Schweitzer effect'. The 'Schweitzer effect' refers to his statement that 'Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing'.[91] This eponym is used in medical education to highlight the relationship between lived experience/example and medical students' opinions on professional behaviours.[92] International Albert Schweitzer Prize The prize was first awarded on 29 May 2011 to Eugen Drewermann and the physician couple Rolf and Raphaela Maibach in Königsfeld im Schwarzwald, where Schweitzer's former residence now houses the Albert Schweitzer Museum.[93] Sound recordings Recordings of Schweitzer playing the music of Bach are available on CD. During 1934 and 1935 he resided in Britain, delivering the Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh University, and those on Religion in Modern Civilization at Oxford and London. He had originally conducted trials for recordings for HMV on the organ of the old Queen's Hall in London. These records did not satisfy him, the instrument being too harsh. In mid-December 1935 he began to record for Columbia Records on the organ of All Hallows, Barking-by-the-Tower, London.[94] Then at his suggestion the sessions were transferred to the church of Ste Aurélie in Strasbourg, on a mid-18th-century organ by Johann Andreas Silbermann (brother of Gottfried), an organ-builder greatly revered by Bach, which had been restored by the Lorraine organ-builder Frédéric Härpfer shortly before the First World War. These recordings were made in the course of a fortnight in October 1936.[95] Schweitzer Technique This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Schweitzer developed a technique for recording the performances of Bach's music. Known as the "Schweitzer Technique", it is a slight improvement on what is commonly known as mid-side. The mid-side sees a figure-8 microphone pointed off-axis, perpendicular to the sound source. Then a single cardioid microphone is placed on axis, bisecting the figure-8 pattern. The signal from the figure-8 is muted, panned hard left and right, one of the signals being flipped out of polarity. In the Schweitzer method, the figure-8 is replaced by two small diaphragm condenser microphones pointed directly away from each other. The information that each capsule collects is unique, unlike the identical out-of-polarity information generated from the figure-8 in a regular mid-side. The on-axis microphone is often a large diaphragm condenser. The technique has since been used to record many modern instruments. Columbia recordings Altogether his early Columbia discs included 25 records of Bach and eight of César Franck. The Bach titles were mainly distributed as follows: Queen's Hall: Organ Prelude and Fugue in E minor (Edition Peters[note 2] Vol 3, 10); Herzlich thut mich verlangen (BWV 727); Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein (Vol 7, 58 (Leipzig 18)).[96] All Hallows: Prelude and Fugue in C major; Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (the Great); Prelude and Fugue in G major; Prelude and Fugue in F minor; Little Fugue in G minor; Toccata and Fugue in D minor.[97] Ste Aurélie: Prelude and Fugue in C minor; Prelude and Fugue in E minor; Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Chorale Preludes: Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele (Peters Vol 7, 49 (Leipzig 4)); O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß (Vol 5, 45); O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig (Vol 7, 48 (Leipzig 6)); Christus, der uns selig macht (Vol 5, 8); Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stand (Vol 5, 9); An Wasserflüssen Babylon (Vol 6, 12b); Christum wir wollen loben schon (Vol 5, 6); Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier (Vol 5, app 5); Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin (Vol 5, 4); Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig (Var 11, Vol 5, app. 3); Jesus Christus, unser Heiland (Vol 6, 31 (Leipzig 15)); Christ lag in Todesbanden (Vol 5, 5); Erschienen ist der herrlich Tag (Vol 5, 15).[98][99] Gunsbach parish church, where the later recordings were made Later recordings were made at Parish church, Günsbach: These recordings were made by C. Robert Fine during the time Dr. Schweitzer was being filmed in Günsbach for the documentary "Albert Schweitzer". Fine originally self-released the recordings but later licensed the masters to Columbia. Fugue in A minor (Peters, Vol 2, 8); Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (Great) (Vol 2, 4); Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major (Vol 3, 8).[100] Prelude in C major (Vol 4, 1); Prelude in D major (Vol 4, 3); Canzona in D minor (Vol 4, 10) (with Mendelssohn, Sonata in D minor op 65.6).[101] Chorale-Preludes: O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß (1st and 2nd versions, Peters Vol 5, 45); Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein (Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit) (vol 7, 58 (Leipzig 18)); Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (Vol 5, 30); Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ (Vol 5, 17); Herzlich tut mich verlangen (Vol 5, 27); Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (vol 7, 45 (BWV 659a)).[102] The above were released in the United States as Columbia Masterworks boxed set SL-175. Philips recordings J. S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in A major, BWV 536; Prelude and Fugue in F minor, BWV 534; Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 544; Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538.[103] J. S. Bach: Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582; Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 533; Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543; Prelude and Fugue in G major, BWV 541; Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565.[104] César Franck: Organ Chorales, no. 1 in E major; no. 2 in B minor; no. 3 in A minor.[105] Portrayals Dramatisations of Schweitzer's life include: The 1952 biographical film Il est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer, with Pierre Fresnay as Schweitzer. The 1957 biographical film Albert Schweitzer in which Schweitzer appears as himself and Phillip Eckert portrays him. The 1962 TV remake of Il est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer, with Jean-Pierre Marielle as Schweitzer. The 1990 biographical film The Light in the Jungle, with Malcolm McDowell as Schweitzer. Two 1992 episodes of the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles ("German East Africa, December 1916" and "Congo, January 1917"), with Friedrich von Thun as Schweitzer. The episodes were later combined to create Oganga, Giver and Taker of Life. The 1995 biographical film Le Grand blanc de Lambaréné, with André Wilms as Schweitzer. The 2006 TV biographical film Albert Schweitzer: Called to Africa, with Jeff McCarthy as Schweitzer. The 2009 biographical film Albert Schweitzer [de], with Jeroen Krabbé as Schweitzer. Bibliography — (2001) [German, 1906. English edition, A. & C. Black, London 1910, 1911], The Quest of the Historical Jesus; A Critical Study of Its Progress From Reimarus To Wrede, translated by Montgomery, William, Augsburg Fortress Publishers, ISBN 978-0-8006-3288-5 — (1905), J. S. Bach, Le Musicien-Poète [JS Bach, the Poet Musician] (in French), introduction by C. M. Widor, Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel with P. Costellot — (1908), J. S. Bach (in German) (enlarged ed.), Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. English translation by Ernest Newman, with author's alterations and additions, London 1911. Fulltext scans (English): Vol. 1, Vol. 2. — (1906). Deutsche und französische Orgelbaukunst und Orgelkunst [German and French organbuilding and organ art] (in German). Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. (first printed in Musik, vols 13 and 14 (5th year)). — (1948) [1911]. The Psychiatric Study of Jesus: Exposition and Criticism. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith Publisher. ISBN 978-0-8446-2894-3. — (1912). Paul and His Interpreters, A Critical History. Translated by Montgomery, W. London: Adam & Charles Black. — (1985) [1914]. The Mystery of the Kingdom of God: The Secret of Jesus' Messiahship and Passion. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-0-87975-294-1. — (1924) [1922]. On the Edge of the Primeval Forest. Translated by Campion, Ch. Th. (reprint ed.). London: A. & C. Black. (translation of Zwischen Wasser und Urwald, 1921) The Decay and the Restoration of Civilization and Civilization and Ethics (The Philosophy of Civilization, Vols I & II of the projected but not completed four-volume work), A. & C. Black, London 1923. Material from these volumes is rearranged in a modern compilation, The Philosophy of Civilization (Prometheus Books, 1987), ISBN 0-87975-403-6 — (1998) [1930, 1931], The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 978-0-8018-6098-0 — (1931). Aus Meinem Leben und Denken. Leipzig: Felix Meiner Verlag. translated as — (1933). Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography. Henry Holt and Company.; — (1998). Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-6097-3. — (1935). Indian Thought and Its Development. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press. OCLC 8003381. Afrikanische Geschichten (Felix Meiner, Leipzig and Hamburg 1938): tr. Mrs C. E. B. Russell as From My African Notebook (George Allen and Unwin, London 1938/Henry Holt, New York 1939). Modern edition with foreword by L. Forrow (Syracuse University Press, 2002). — (4 November 1954). "The Problem of Peace". The Nobel Foundation. — (1958). Peace or Atomic War?. New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 978-0-8046-1551-8. — (1968). Neuenschwander, Ulrich [in German] (ed.). The Kingdom of God and Primitive Christianity. New York: Seabury Press. OCLC 321874. — (2005). Brabazon, James (ed.). Albert Schweitzer: Essential Writings. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. ISBN 978-1-57075-602-3. See also List of peace activists Cultural depictions of Albert Schweitzer Helene Bresslau Schweitzer Notes He officiated at the wedding of Theodor Heuss (later the first President of West Germany) in 1908.[29][30][31][32][33] Schweitzer's Bach recordings are usually identified with reference to the Peters Edition of the Organ-works in 9 volumes, edited by Friedrich Konrad Griepenkerl and Ferdinand August Roitzsch, in the form revised by Hermann Keller. References Citations Schweitzer, Albert (10 December 1953), "Award Ceremony Speech", The Nobel Peace Prize 1952, The Nobel prize. Oermann 2016, p. 43. Free 1988, p. 74. Stammbaum – Genealogic tree Arbre généalogique de la famille Schweitze, Schweitzer, archived from the original on 26 April 2006. Association Internationale Albert Schweitzer, archived from the original on 9 December 2010, retrieved 1 August 2012. Seaver 1951, p. 3–9. A. Schweitzer, Eugene Munch (J. Brinkmann, Mulhouse 1898). Joy 1953, p. 23–24. Joy 1953, p. 24. George N. Marshall, David Poling, Schweitzer, JHU Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8018-6455-0 Cicovacki, Predrag (2 February 2009). Albert Schweitzer's Ethical Vision A Sourcebook. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199703326. Schweitzer, Albert; Bresslau, Helene; Stewart, Nancy (2003). Albert Schweitzer-helene Bresslau: the Years Prior to Lambarene. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815629948. Brabazon 2000, p. 84. "Albert Schweitzer – Biographical". nobelprize.org. Retrieved 10 March 2018. Joy 1953, p. 24–25. Seaver 1951, p. 20. Schweitzer, My Life and Thought, pp. 80–81; cf. Seaver 1951, pp. 231–232 Joy 1953, p. 58–62. Cassirer, Ernst (1979). Verene, Donald Phillip (ed.). Symbol, Myth, and Culture: Essays and Lectures of Ernst Cassirer 1935–1945. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. p. 230. ISBN 978-0-300-02666-5. Schweitzer, in Joy 1953, pp. 53–57 Joy 1953, pp. 53–57, quoting from and translating A. Schweitzer, 'Mes Souvenirs sur Cosima Wagner', in L'Alsace Française, XXXV no. 7 (12 February 1933), p. 124ff. Wedel, Gudrun (2010), Autobiographien von Frauen: ein Lexikon Reproduced in Joy 1953, pp. 127–129, 129–165: cf. also Seaver 1951, pp. 29–36 Joy 1953, pp. 165–166: Text of 1909 Questionnaire and Report, pp. 235–269. Seaver 1951, p. 44. Given by the Paris Bach Society, Seaver 1951, p. 63; but Joy 1953, p. 177, says it was given by the Paris Missionary Society. Seaver 1951, p. 63–64. Joy 1953 plate facing p. 177. Oermann 2016, p. 101-102. Brabazon 2000, p. 422. Pierhal 1956, p. 63. Pierhal 1957, p. 63f. "The Bulletin". Bulletin des Presse- und Informationsamtes der Bundesregierung [...] [Englische Ausgabe] = the Bulletin. Bonn, West Germany: Press and Information Office. 9–10: 36. 1962. ISSN 0032-7794. Avey, Albert E. (1934). "Review of The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle". The Philosophical Review. 43 (1): 84–86. doi:10.2307/2179960. JSTOR 2179960. Schweitzer, Albert (2001). The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Fortress Press. p. 478. ISBN 9781451403541. Ehrman, Bart D. (20 March 2012). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperCollins. pp. 11–. ISBN 978-0-06-208994-6. I agree with Schweitzer's overarching view, that Jesus is best understood as a Jewish prophet who anticipated a cataclysmic break in history in the very near future, when God would destroy the forces of evil to bring in his own kingdom here on earth. "Review of "The Mystery of the Kingdom of God"". Pcisys. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Macmillan. 1910. p. 403. Schweitzer 1931, p. 1. Schweitzer 1931, p. 2. Schweitzer 1931, p. 3. Schweitzer 1931, p. 13. Schweitzer 1931, p. xvi. Schweitzer 1931, p. 16. Schweitzer 1931, p. 17. Schweitzer 1931, p. 103. Schweitzer 1931, p. 9. Seaver 1951, p. 40. Schweitzer, Albert (1913). Die psychiatrische Beurteilung Jesu: Darstellung und Kritik (in German). Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). LCCN 13021072. OCLC 5903262. OL 20952265W. Schweitzer, Albert (1948). The Psychiatric Study of Jesus: Exposition and Criticism. Translated by Joy, Charles R. Boston: Beacon Press. LCCN 48006488. OCLC 614572512. OL 6030284M. Seidel, Michael (January 2009). "Albert Schweitzer's MD thesis on Criticism of the medical pathographies on Jesus". Würzburger medizinhistorische Mitteilungen. Königshausen & Neumann. 28 (1): 276–300. ISSN 0177-5227. PMID 20509445. Marxsen, Patti M. Helene Schweitzer: A Life of Her Own. First edition. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2015. From the Primeval Forest, Chapter 1. From the Primeval Forest, Chapter 6. Monfried, Walter (10 February 1947). "Admirers Call Dr. Schweitzer "Greatest Man in the World"". Milwaukee, Wisconsin. pp. 1, 3. From the Primeval Forest, Chapters 3–5. Albert Schweitzer 1875–1965 Archived 14 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine. schweitzer.org (in German) Nessmann worked with the French Resistance during the Second World War, was captured and executed by the Gestapo in Limoges in 1944. cf Guy Penaud, Dictionnaire Biographique de Périgord, p. 713. ISBN 978-2-86577-214-8 Cameron, James (1966) [1978]. Point of Departure. Law Book Co of Australasia. pp. 154–174. ISBN 9780853621751. On Monday 7 April 2008 ("The Walrus and the Terrier" – programme outline) BBC Radio 4 broadcast an Afternoon Play "The Walrus and the Terrier" by Christopher Ralling concerning Cameron's visit. Chinua Achebe. "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" Archived 18 January 2006 at the Wayback Machine – the Massachusetts Review. 1977. (c/o North Carolina State University) Berman, Edgar (1986). In Africa with Schweitzer. Far Hills, New Jersey, U.S.: New Horizon Press. ISBN 0-88282-025-7. Schweitzer 2005, p. 76–80. Brabazon 2000, p. 253-256. Berman, Edgar (1986), In Africa With Schweitzer, Far Hills, New Jersey: New Horizon Press, p. 139, ISBN 978-0-88282-025-5. Schweitzer 1924, p. 130 Quoted by Forrow, Lachlan (2002). "Foreword". In Russell, C.E.B. (ed.). African Notebook. Albert Schweitzer library. Syracuse University Press. p. xiii. ISBN 978-0-8156-0743-4. Inside Africa. New York: Harper. 1955. Amagezi Agokuzalisa. London: Sheldon Press. Paget, James Carleton (2012). "Albert Schweitzer and Africa". Journal of Religion in Africa. 24 (3): 277–316. doi:10.1163/15700666-12341230. JSTOR 41725476. Civilization and Ethics, Chapter 21, p. 253: reprinted as A. Schweitzer, The Philosophy of Civilization (Prometheus Books, Buffalo 1987), Chapter 26. Civilization and Ethics, Preface and Chapter II, "The Problem of the Optimistic World-View". Ara Paul Barsam (2002) "Albert Schweitzer, Jainism and reverence for life", in: Reverence for life: the ethics of Albert Schweitzer for the twenty-first century, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, ISBN 978-0-8156-2977-1 pp. 207–208 Albert Schweitzer and Charles Rhind Joy (1947) Albert Schweitzer: an anthology Beacon Press S. Maharajan (2017). Tiruvalluvar (2 ed.). New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. pp. 100–102. ISBN 978-81-260-5321-6. Schweitzer, Albert (2013). Indian Thoughts and Its Development. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Read Books. pp. 200–205. ISBN 978-14-7338-900-7. Schweitzer museum "The Nobel Peace Prize 1952". The Nobel Foundation. 21 May 2014. Retrieved 18 August 2017. Schweitzer 1954. Declaration of Conscience speech Archived 16 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine – at Tennessee Players "Albert Schweitzer and Henry Fonda's Lost Special". Culturedarm. 20 January 2015. "List of Members of the Order of Merit, past and present". British Monarchy. Retrieved 2 December 2008. "Louis Théophile Schweitzer". Roglo.eu. Retrieved 18 October 2011.[self-published source] Barkas, Janet L. (1975). The Vegetable Passion. Scribner. p. 131. ISBN 9780684139258 Gregerson, Jon. (1994). Vegetarianism: A History. Jain Publishing Company. p. 104. ISBN 9780875730301 "History of Vegetarianism – Dr Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965)". Ivu.org. 4 September 1965. Archived from the original on 21 May 2011. Ratter, Magnus C. (1950). Albert Schweitzer: Life and Message. Beacon Press. p. 179 Brentley, James. (1992). Albert Schweitzer: The Enigma. HarperCollins. p. 200. ISBN 9780060163648 Stamos, David N. (2008). Evolution and the Big Questions: Sex, Race, Religion, and Other Matters. Wiley. p. 175. ISBN 9781405149020 "The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship". Schweitzerfellowship.org. 23 June 2011. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. See quotations. Byers, J.Q., 1996. Brothers in Spirit: the Correspondence of Albert Schweitzer and William Larimer Mellon, Jr. (New York, Syracuse University Press). [1]. "Königsfeld feiert ?Schweitzer-Erben? | Südkurier Online". Südkurier. 30 May 2011. This 1909 Harrison and Harrison organ was destroyed in the war (cf W. Kent, The Lost Treasures of London (Phoenix House 1947), 94–95) and rebuilt in 1957, see "Harrison & Harrison organ catalogue by name London". Archived from the original on 5 July 2008. Retrieved 6 May 2008.. Seaver 1951, p. 139–152. (78 rpm HMV C 1532 and C 1543), cf. R.D. Darrell, The Gramophone Shop Encyclopedia of Recorded Music (New York 1936). (78 rpm Columbia ROX 146–152), cf. Darrell 1936. Joy 1953, pp. 226–230. The 78s were issued in albums, with a specially designed record label (Columbia ROX 8020–8023, 8032–8035, etc.). Ste Aurélie recordings appeared also on LP as Columbia 33CX1249 E.M.I., A Complete List of EMI, Columbia, Parlophone and MGM Long Playing Records issued up to and including June 1955 (London 1955) for this and discographical details following. Columbia LP 33CX1074 Columbia LP 33CX1084 Columbia LP 33CX1081 E.M.G., The Art of Record Buying (London 1960), pp. 12–13. Philips ABL 3092, issued March 1956. E.M.G., op. cit., Philips ABL 3134, issued September 1956. Other selections are on Philips GBL 5509. Philips ABL 3221. Sources Schweitzer, Albert (1924) [1922]. On the Edge of the Primeval Forest. Translated by Campion, Ch. Th. (reprint ed.). London: A. & C. Black. (translation of Zwischen Wasser und Urwald, 1921) Schweitzer, Albert (1931). The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. Johns Hopkins University Press. Brabazon, J. (2000). Albert Schweitzer: A Biography. Albert Schweitzer library. Syracuse University Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-8156-0675-8. Free, A.C. (1988). Animals, Nature and Albert Schweitzer. Flying Fox Press. ISBN 978-0-9617225-4-8. Retrieved 2 July 2017. Joy, Charles R., ed. (1953). Music in the Life of Albert Schweitzer. London: A. & C. Black. Oermann, N. O. (2016). Albert Schweitzer: A Biography. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-108704-2. Retrieved 2 July 2017. Pierhal, J. (1956). Albert Schweitzer: The Life of a Great Man. Lutterworth. Retrieved 2 July 2017. Pierhal, J. (1957). Albert Schweitzer: the story of his life. Philosophical Library. ISBN 9780802219756. Seaver, G. (1951). Albert Schweitzer: The Man and His Mind. London: A. & C. Black. Further reading Anderson, Erica; Exman, Eugene (1955). The World of Albert Schweitzer. New York: Harper & Brothers. Anderson, Erica (1965). The Schweitzer Album. New York: Harper & Row. Bartolf, Christian; Gericke, Marion; Miething, Dominique (2020): Dr. Albert Schweitzer: "My Address to the People" – Commitment against Nuclear War. Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, Gandhi-Informations-Zentrum. doi:10.17169/refubium-27573 ISBN 978-3-96110-357-7. Brabazon, J. (1975). Albert Schweitzer: A Biography. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 978-0-399-11421-2. Cousins, Norman (1985). Albert Schweitzer's Mission Healing and Peace. W. W. Norton. Rud, A. G. (2011). Albert Schweitzer's Legacy for Education: Reverence for Life. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 173ff. Smiley, Xan (February 2023). "Ahead of his time, behind ours". Commonweal. 150 (2): 26–33.[a] ——————— Notes Online version is titled "The legacy of Albert Schweitzer : can we still admire him?". External links Albert Schweitzer at Wikipedia's sister projects Media from Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Data from Wikidata Award-winning documentary about him Albert Schweitzer info at Internet Archive Works by Albert Schweitzer at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Albert Schweitzer at Internet Archive Works by Albert Schweitzer at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Edit this at Wikidata Albert Schweitzer Papers at Syracuse University John D. Regester Collection on Albert Schweitzer The Helfferich Collection, collected by Reginald H. Helfferich on Albert Schweitzer, is at the Harvard Divinity School Library at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. What Jesus was thinking Archived 29 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine An interpretation and restatement of Schweitzer's last book, The Kingdom of God and Primitive Christianity Newspaper clippings about Albert Schweitzer in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW Edit this at Wikidata Albert Schweitzer on Nobelprize.org Edit this at Wikidata vte 1952 Nobel Prize laureates vte Laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize vte Anti-nuclear movement vte Tirukkural Authority control databases Edit this at Wikidata Categories: 1875 births1965 deathsPeople from Kaysersberg-VignoblePeople from Alsace-Lorraine20th-century German Protestant theologians19th-century French people19th-century German Lutheran clergyPeople with acquired French citizenshipFrench biblical scholarsBach scholarsFrench anti–nuclear weapons activistsFrench Lutheran missionariesFrench Christian pacifistsFrench classical organistsFrench male organistsFrench LutheransFrench Nobel laureatesFrench medical writersFrench tropical physiciansFrench UnitariansFrench evangelicalsGerman anti–nuclear weapons activistsGerman Lutheran missionariesGerman Christian pacifistsLutheran pacifistsLutheran philosophersGerman Lutheran theologiansGerman classical organists20th-century German Lutheran clergyGerman Nobel laureatesGerman medical writersGerman UnitariansGerman evangelicalsHonorary members of the Order of MeritHonorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic SocietyGerman music historiansNobel Peace Prize laureatesRecipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)University of Tübingen alumniChristian medical missionariesEnvironmental philosophersPupils of Isidor PhilippGerman male non-fiction writersLutheran missionaries in AfricaProtestant missionaries in GabonHealthcare in GabonGerman writers in FrenchFrench writers in German19th-century French writers19th-century German writers19th-century German male writers20th-century French writers20th-century German writersTranslators to GermanTamil–German translatorsAnimal rights scholarsAnti-imperialism in EuropeGerman male organistsTirukkural translatorsMissionary linguistsCorresponding Fellows of the British AcademyCelebrity doctorsMale classical organists This page was last edited on 24 December 2023, at 11:54 (UTC). Albert Schweitzer 1952 Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive. Albert Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for is philosophy of "reverence for life" and tireless humanitarian work. 1951-1953 Full name: Albert Schweitzer Born: January 14, 1875, Kaysersberg, Germany (now France) Died: September 4, 1965, Lambaréné, Gabon Date awarded: October 30, 1953 "The saga of his life and work provides one of the greatest sources of inspiration to the world’s efforts to create better conditions for the people." Nomination proposal submitted by four members of the Norwegian Storting, 20 January 1950. MINISTER TURNED DOCTOR IN AFRICA A theologian, Albert Schweitzer changed his course after reading of the desperate need for medical assistance in the French colony of Gabon. He later wrote, “I no longer needed to search for my path”. He dedicated himself to medical studies, seeking to build and run a hospital in Africa to alleviate suffering. On Long Friday 1913, Dr. Schweitzer and his wife Hélène Bresslau, a trained nurse, set off for the Lambaréné mission station on the Ogowo River. The hospital in Lambaréné became his life’s work. He raised funds for materials, medicine and equipment. He also donated all his prize money to the hospital. Schweitzer showed that it is possible to create trust and communication between people, regardless of nationality or race. His efforts have served as an example to others. THEOLOGIAN AND PHILOSOPHER Albert Schweitzer was a devout Christian. However, he believed that humans as rational beings have the right to independent thought and reason on all matters, including the basic tenets of Christianity. His liberal outlook was not endorsed by the leaders of the mission company, and he had to promise to serve only as a physician, not a minister, at the mission station in Africa. Schweitzer sought to preserve all life. His philosophy was completely life affirming, and is summed up by his motto: “Reverence for life”. He published several books on this subject. A SKILLED MUSICIAN Schweitzer began to play the piano at the age of 5. Three years later, he started standing in for the organist in Gühnsbach, the tiny Alsatian village in which he grew up. Music was a crucial part of Schweitzer’s life. He studied organ while studying theology, becoming an accomplished Bach interpreter. In 1905, he published a major work on Bach in French and German. Schweitzer held organ concerts internationally to finance his studies and raise funds for his hospital in Africa. However, he refused to set foot in Germany after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, and he declined to attend the Bach Festival in Leipzig in 1935. "Albert Schweitzer will never belong to any one nation. His whole life and all of his work are a message addressed to all men regardless of nationality or race." Gunnar Jahn, Chairman of the Nobel Committee, Presentation Speech, 10 December 1953. Quoted from Nobel Lectures Peace 1950-70: 37. THE HOSPITAL IN LAMBARÉNÉ The Schweitzers built the hospital from scratch. The first weeks they used a chicken coop as a consultation room before erecting a corrugated iron barrack which also housed an operating theatre and a small pharmacy. Bamboo huts were put up around the hospital to shelter the droves of people seeking help. Dr. Schweitzer treated patients suffering from a host of illnesses: malaria, encephalitis, leprosy, dysentery, hernia and heart failure. Schweitzer focused on promoting bonds of trust between the hospital and its patients. With respect and gratitude he was dubbed the “Grand Docteur”. ALBERT SCHWEITZER IN NORWAY White-haired and clad in black, the aging Albert Schweitzer made an indelible impression on Norway. One Norwegian newspaper wrote that the “breath of God’s spirit” entered the room when the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was present. Word soon spread that Schweitzer had already spent his prize money on materials and equipment for the hospital in Lambaréné. Norwegian newspapers launched an appeal for a “people’s peace prize”, and when Schweitzer left a few days later he carried a check for NOK 310,000, nearly twice the award sum of the Peace Prize. Albert Schweitzer Quotes German - Theologian January 14, 1875 - September 4, 1965 Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight... the truly wise person is colorblind.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now - always.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier. - Albert Schweitzer Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Example is leadership.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Whoever is spared personal pain must feel himself called to help in diminishing the pain of others. We must all carry our share of the misery which lies upon the world.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer By respect for life we become religious in a way that is elementary, profound and alive.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few stones upon it.Share this Quote 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.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory. - Albert Schweitzer Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer My life is my argument.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer The highest proof of the spirit is love. Love the eternal thing which can already on earth possess as it really is.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Let me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and further life it is bad to damage and destroy life.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer We cannot possibly let ourselves get frozen into regarding everyone we do not know as an absolute stranger.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer The African is my brother but he is my younger brother by several centuries.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Ethics is the activity of man directed to secure the inner perfection of his own personality.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. For remember, you don't live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will - his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Do something for somebody everyday for which you do not get paid.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer 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.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer One truth stands firm. All that happens in world history rests on something spiritual. If the spiritual is strong, it creates world history. If it is weak, it suffers world history.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colours and textures that come alive in others.Share this Quote Albert Schweitzer Transcript 0:00 he was a Healer a doctor a philosopher a 0:04 religious scholar a biographer of Jesus 0:07 and an organ player who performed for 0:09 the king of Spain this is the incredible 0:12 life of Albert 0:16 schweiter we are not used to 0:18 philosophers who take their own thoughts 0:23 seriously arguments are cheap most 0:27 philosophy papers published get read by 0:30 a handful of 0:31 people essentially philosophers can 0:34 write what they want and nobody 0:38 cares whole careers are made on the 0:41 strength of papers that mean nothing to 0:45 anyone those who publish useful 0:47 philosophy those whose thought can be 0:50 applied are often looked upon with 0:54 suspicion but these others have always 0:57 existed from Socrates to satra and Simon 1:00 De bouar there have always been 1:03 philosophers who had wanted to make a 1:05 difference in the world who wanted to be 1:08 read discussed and followed who wanted 1:11 their ideas to live who wanted to change 1:14 their societies who wanted to make the 1:17 world a better fairer and more just 1:22 Place Albert wer was one of them he was 1:26 a medical doctor Protestant Theologian 1:29 music I and philosopher in many ways he 1:33 was a son of his time a contemporary to 1:36 many others who seem larger than 1:41 life he was born right between Gandhi 1:45 who was 6 years older and that other 1:48 Albert the physicist Einstein four years 1:52 his 1:53 younger it was an age whose protagonists 1:57 built and destroyed Empires directed 2:00 cathedrals of Science and dedicated 2:02 their lives to almost inhuman levels of 2:07 altruism and they did all that over 2:10 lifetimes that included the two most 2:12 terrible and inhuman Wars that history 2:15 has ever 2:16 seen thinking back to the world they 2:19 inhabited and formed one is reminded of 2:21 the great line in the script to Graham 2:24 Green's Third Man where Harry lime says 2:28 what the fell said 2:30 in Nataly for 30 years under the boures 2:32 they had Warfare Terror murder and 2:34 bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo 2:37 Leonardo D Vinci and the Renaissance in 2:39 Switzerland they had Brotherly Love they 2:41 had 500 years of democracy and peace and 2:44 what did that produce the cuckoo 2:48 clock Albert SCH is not much remembered 2:52 today his legacy is not carried forward 2:54 by an army of scientists or a whole 2:57 nation of a billion people philosophers 3:01 never took him seriously as an 3:03 ethicist although few who call 3:06 themselves ethicists today would be 3:08 willing to put their whole lives in the 3:10 service of their beliefs as he 3:13 did as a young man he studied Theology 3:17 and music becoming an expert in the 3:19 study and restoration of historic church 3:23 organs he was such an accomplished 3:26 musician that in 1905 he was invited to 3:29 play for the king and queen of Spain 3:32 after the concert the king asked him is 3:36 it difficult to play the organ to which 3:39 riter answered it's almost as difficult 3:43 as it is to rule 3:49 Spain as a scholar he wrote two books on 3:52 the interpretation of bucks music he 3:55 published widely acclaimed research on 3:58 the historical Jesus and much later on 4:01 the mysticism of early 4:07 Christianity but as he Grew Older he 4:10 also grew Restless unsatisfied with a 4:14 life of privilege as we would say now 4:17 asking himself how he could justify his 4:20 existence in the face of Jesus 4:23 Commandments to a friend he 4:28 wrote for me religion means to be human 4:31 plainly human in the sense in which 4:34 Jesus was in the colonies things are 4:37 pretty hopeless and comfortless we think 4:40 only of what we can get out of the 4:43 natives in short what is happening there 4:46 is a mockery of humanity and 4:48 Christianity we must send out there man 4:51 who will do good in the name of Jesus 4:54 man who will help the distress as they 4:58 must be helped 5:00 if The Sermon on the Mount and the words 5:02 of Jesus are valid and 5:06 right Scher 5:08 continues now we sit here and study 5:11 Theology and then compete for the best 5:14 ecclesiastical posts write thick learned 5:17 books in order to become professors of 5:20 Theology and what is going on out there 5:23 where the honor and the name of Jesus 5:25 are at stake does not concern us at all 5:31 I cannot do so for years I've turned 5:34 these matters over in my mind this way 5:37 and that at last it became clear to me 5:40 that this is not my life I want to be a 5:44 simple human being doing something small 5:47 in the spirit of 5:51 Jesus we might today dislike some of 5:54 sches word choices but this was over 100 5:58 years ago and and schwier was just using 6:01 the language of his time more important 6:04 is that at this early stage already 6:07 Scher felt that we should be grateful 6:09 for 6:11 Life nobody can know he said where we 6:14 came from or where we were 6:18 going the only sure thing was existence 6:22 itself and the only way to affirm life 6:25 was to take responsibility for our 6:28 existence 6:31 much later schweitzer's young cousin 6:33 born around the time schweiter wrote 6:35 these words je Paul SRA would make 6:39 existence the central theme of his 6:42 philosophy but for SRA this meant 6:45 futility and distress not 6:48 thankfulness the word existentialist 6:50 could be applied to both but it was 6:53 sress version notes that gained currency 6:57 in the philosophical world 7:02 3 years later schwier finished his 7:04 medical 7:05 studies already teaching theology at the 7:08 University he had become a student again 7:10 at 30 10 years older than his 7:13 peers and in the time left to him he was 7:16 an organist of rising International 7:20 reputation as his biographer remarks his 7:23 biggest problem at that time among the 7:26 studying and teaching and writing and 7:28 playing music was to stay 7:33 awake but slowly he was approaching his 7:35 dream of spending his life in a more 7:38 meaningful way in 1913 he set out on a 7:43 boat to 7:45 Africa it was in Africa where schwier 7:48 founded his hospital with his own money 7:50 at larini in what is now Gabon it was 7:55 the work in Africa that brought into 7:57 sharp Focus for him the difference 7:59 between one's rationality and one's 8:03 emotions schetzer 8:06 writes I was always even as a boy 8:09 engrossed in the philosophical problem 8:11 of the relation between emotion and 8:15 reason certain truths originate in 8:18 feeling others in the 8:20 mind those truths that come from our 8:24 emotions are of a moral kind compassion 8:28 kindness forgiveness love for our 8:32 neighbor reason on the other hand 8:35 teaches us the truths that come from 8:39 reflection Scher 8:42 continues but with the great spirits of 8:44 our world feeling is always 8:48 Paramount the truth of emotion is the 8:51 most profound and the most important 8:57 truth one day schweer had to take a long 9:00 journey up the river that passed by his 9:04 Hospital lost in thought he sat on the 9:07 deck of the barge struggling to find 9:10 something common in all the ethics that 9:12 mankind 9:14 uses two days passed late on the third 9:18 day at Sunset they were making their way 9:22 just then it flashed through his mind 9:25 that one phrase that would define his 9:27 own philosophy 9:30 reverence for 9:36 Life Scher 9:38 right the iron door had finally yielded 9:42 the path in the thicket had become 9:45 visible now I had found my way to the 9:49 principle in which affirmation of the 9:51 world and ethics are joined 9:56 together later he would summarize his 9:58 philosophy in this passage from 10:00 civilization and ethics ethics is 10:03 nothing other than reverence for Life 10:06 reverence for Life affords me my 10:09 fundamental principle of morality namely 10:12 that good consists in maintaining 10:14 assisting and enhancing life and to 10:18 destroy to harm or to hinder life is 10:25 evil reverence is not the best 10:27 translation the German words writes are 10:29 used is air for a composite of a meaning 10:33 honor and for meaning fear air for is 10:37 the awe and fear we experience in the 10:39 presence of the sublime in the presence 10:42 of 10:45 God like his contemporary Albert 10:48 Einstein schwier to agreed with Spinosa 10:52 that God is not some being that resides 10:55 far away on a cloud and judges mankind 11:00 instead writers God like Einstein and 11:03 spinas is one who cannot be separated 11:06 from the world God is the 11:11 world Einstein said I believe in 11:15 Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the 11:18 orderly Harmony of what exists not in a 11:22 God who concerns himself with Fates and 11:26 actions of human beings 11:31 sh lived his life according to the idea 11:33 that God manifests himself in every form 11:37 of life his co-workers at his Hospital 11:40 would remember him carefully picking up 11:42 and placing little earthworms and 11:44 spiders to the side before planting a 11:47 sapling into the 11:51 ground and if God is equally present in 11:54 all life then we cannot see human life 11:58 as a I to other forms of life 12:01 anymore the essential moral element in 12:04 all living things is life 12:06 itself the moment one begins to 12:08 distinguish different qualities of life 12:11 one is on the path that leads ultimately 12:14 to the misconception that animal life is 12:17 more valuable than plant life that human 12:20 life is more valuable than animal life 12:22 and that perhaps even some human lives 12:24 should be seen as more valuable than 12:26 other human lives and they rer was never 12:29 going to accept in the end therefore his 12:33 view of things boils down to a very 12:36 simple 12:38 Maxim he 12:39 wrote I Am life that Wills to live in 12:43 the midst of life that Wills to 12:46 [Music] 12:50 live Scher was given the Nobel Peace 12:53 Prize in 12:54 1952 he returned to Africa where he used 12:57 the Nobel prize money to expand his 12:59 Hospital in lorini shortly before he 13:02 died his daughter wrote in a 13:06 letter Lumar hospital is in a great 13:09 degree in African village which now 13:12 comprises 72 buildings grouped around 13:15 the central core operating theater x-ray 13:18 room laboratory dental clinic delivery 13:22 room about 1,000 operations a year are 13:25 performed about 350 babies born each 13:29 year at the 13:32 hospital for AR fer real philosophy is 13:36 nothing without the reverence for 13:51 life The Most Compassionate Philosopher: Albert Schweitzer and the Reverence for Life. Albert Schweitzer was a philosopher, doctor, Bible scholar and world-famous organist. This is the story of his astonishing life. Subscribe so that you don't miss any parts! More on this: https://dailyphilosophy.substack.com All assets, including music, licenced from Envato Elements. Transcript Follow along using the transcript. Show transcript Daily Philosophy 4.62K subscribers Videos About 4 Comments rongmaw lin Add a comment... @sharpiepenfinepoint @sharpiepenfinepoint 3 months ago That was a great video! Your editing is really well put together, and your voice is so easily understood. Schweitzer isn’t someone I knew, but his philosophical concept of god is definitely something I’ve thought. Albert Schweitzer Quotes About Life Transcript Search in video 0:02 success is not the key to happiness 0:04 happiness is the key to success if you 0:06 love what you're doing you will be 0:08 successful 0:12 the purpose of human life is to serve 0:14 and to show compassion and the will to 0:17 help others 0:21 knowing all truth 0:22 is less than doing a little bit of good 0:28 eventually all things fall into place 0:30 until then laugh at the confusion live 0:32 for the moment and know everything 0:35 happens for a reason 0:39 a good example has twice the value of 0:41 good advice 0:45 if you earn something you cannot give 0:47 away 0:48 then you don't own it it owns you 0:52 ethics is the activity of man directed 0:55 to secure the inner perfection of his 0:57 own personality 1:01 the path of awakening is not about 1:03 becoming who you are rather it is about 1:05 and becoming who you are not 1:09 the only thing of importance when we 1:11 depart will be the traces of love we 1:14 have left behind 1:18 i don't know what your destiny will be 1:20 but one thing i know the only ones 1:22 amongst you who will be really happy 1:24 are those who will have sought and found 1:26 how to serve 1:30 at that point in life where your talent 1:32 meets the needs of the world that is 1:34 where god wants you to be 1:39 there are two means of refuge from the 1:40 miseries of life music and cats 1:46 happiness is the only thing that 1:47 multiplies when you share it 1:52 the interior joy we feel when we have 1:54 done a good deed is the nourishment the 1:56 soul requires 2:00 constant kindness can accomplish much as 2:03 the sun makes ice melt kindness causes 2:05 misunderstanding 2:06 mistrust and hostility to evaporate 2:12 the greatest thing is to give thanks for 2:14 everything he who has learned this knows 2:16 what it means to live he has penetrated 2:18 the whole mystery of life giving thanks 2:20 for everything 2:24 in the hopes of reaching the moon men 2:26 fail to see the flowers that blossom at 2:28 their feet 2:32 the result of the voyage does not depend 2:34 on the speed of the ship but on whether 2:36 or not it keeps a true course 2:41 do something good and someone might 2:43 imitate it 2:47 the true worth of a man is not to be 2:49 found in man himself but in the colors 2:52 and textures that come alive in others 2:57 every patient carries her or his own 2:59 doctor inside 3:03 let your life be your argument 3:08 the great secret of success is to go 3:09 through life as a man who never gets 3:12 used to failing 3:16 to me 3:17 good health is more than just exercise 3:19 and diet it's really a point of view and 3:21 a mental attitude you have about 3:23 yourself 3:27 happiness is nothing more than good 3:28 health and a bad memory 3:33 as we acquire knowledge things do not 3:35 become more comprehensible but more 3:37 mysterious 3:41 an optimist is a person who sees a green 3:43 light everywhere while at pessimists 3:46 sees only the red stoplight the truly 3:48 wise person is colorblind 3:52 at 20 everyone has the face that god 3:55 gave them a fordy the face that life 3:57 gave them and that succeed the face they 4:00 earned 4:03 just as white light consists of colored 4:05 rays so reverence for life contains all 4:08 the components of ethics love kindliness 4:11 had sympathy 4:12 empathy peacefulness and power to 4:14 forgive 4:18 there can be no kingdom of god in the 4:20 world without the kingdom of god in our 4:22 hearts 4:26 every patient carries her or his own 4:28 doctor inside 4:32 any religion or philosophy which is not 4:34 based on a respect for life is not a 4:36 true religion or philosophy 4:41 sincerity is the foundation of the 4:43 spiritual life 4:47 the tragedy of life is what dies inside 4:49 a man while he lives 4:54 do something for somebody every day for 4:56 which you do not get paid 5:00 we must never allow the voice of 5:02 humanity within us to be silenced it is 5:04 humanity's sympathy with all creatures 5:06 that first makes us truly human 5:11 the three most important ways to lead 5:13 people are by example by example 5:16 by example 5:34 you Dr. Albert Schweitzer - Full Documentary DianeDi 24.2K subscribers Subscribe 706 Share Download 93,563 views Dec 10, 2011 In this long lost ACADEMY AWARD winning documentary covering the life and times of the legendary humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize winner, the camera follows the good doctor around his hospital in French Equatorial Africa, where his efforts had helped the villagers build and improve their way of life. This amazing documentary features narration by legendary actors Burgess Meredith and Fredric March with incredible on-location footage of Albert Schweitzer at his hospital in Africa. Best Documentary -- 1957 A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives. -Albert Schweitzer Albert Schweitzer, 90, Dies at His Hospital 1965 Great Obituary that explained his philosophy & temperament. ** Thanks cadu1995 for this link. ** http://www.nytimes.com/learning/gener... DianeDi 24.2K subscribers Videos About 82 Comments rongmaw lin Add a comment... @SuperGreatSphinx @SuperGreatSphinx 8 years ago “Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace...” ― Albert Schweitzer 11 Reply @brucejackson4219 @brucejackson4219 1 year ago An inspirational documentary: of his many attributes, an abundance of energy and endurance are obvious. 2 DianeDi Reply DianeDi · 2 replies @Haar26 @Haar26 11 years ago As a teenager, I actually found this really interesting yet inspiring! Thanks for uploading!!! :D 3 Reply 1 reply @Hollymkg @Hollymkg 8 years ago Albert Schweitzer is a true hero and inspiration! "Albert Schweitzer's Gift of Friendship", written by the photographer of this documentary, Erica Anderson, gives a beautiful insight to Dr. Schweitzer's humor, warmth and joy for life. He should be celebrated and taught today as a great example Christ's love for us all! 7 Reply 1 reply @kaicx2 @kaicx2 9 years ago Thanks for uploading! I've been reading his book and finding it to be very inspiring! Now I can know more about the life of this extraordinary man! 9 Reply @MrNgoxuanky @MrNgoxuanky 7 years ago It is sad to see men like him got forgotten 12 Reply 3 replies @MarcoRoepers @MarcoRoepers 8 years ago Very great the full documentary about this inspiring man is on Youtube. I hope many people will watch it so he won't be forgotten. 21 Reply 3 replies @pianorama @pianorama 11 years ago What an inspiring and great human being. Thank you for this wonderful film. 3 Reply @DianeDi @DianeDi 12 years ago @backtodafuture1987 All life has meaning, and although this man dedicated every minute to helping others, we too can feel inspired to do more. It is heartwarming - that's for sure. So glad you enjoyed it! 2 Reply @okhstorm @okhstorm 6 years ago Can Hollywood start making films about the lives of people like Albert Schweitzer instead of ALL THE MINDLESS DISTRACTIONS they create in abundance. Truly incredible human being. 21 Reply 2 replies @raffaellavitiello1762 @raffaellavitiello1762 7 years ago thankyou, l have a record of his playing the organ and l treasure it.He was a true christian the like you dont see often, ànd so humble and loving with simplicity, l respect this great man very much 7 Reply @wernerwirsching2058 @wernerwirsching2058 4 months ago I love him. He is a model to me. To hear him speaking dialect is so moving, because i was living in Black Forest for a long period of time, where the dialect is similar (alemannisch) .So i'm able to understand. - A great human. 1 Reply @jfhotte10 @jfhotte10 11 years ago Dianedi, my aunt died from cancer at the age of 17. I never met her. She read: il est minuit du Dr. Schweitzer and she wanted to become a doctor; save the children in Africa. Her name was Diane, just like you. Thank you for sharing this documentary. 1 Reply @DianeDi @DianeDi 11 years ago I'm so glad you enjoyed this documentary. If only we had more people like Dr. Schweitzer, our world would be a much better place. Most young adults have never heard of this amazing humanitarian. Reply 1 reply @DianeDi @DianeDi 10 years ago Dr. Albert Schweitzer truly was a fascinating humanitarian. Thank you for watching and do share! 1 Reply @ricdavid7476 @ricdavid7476 5 years ago very inspirational man thanks for putting this on. 1 DianeDi Reply @lissaluke81 @lissaluke81 5 years ago inspiring video.what a Great Humanitarian."why do you sit in 3rd class where the seats are hard ? " Because there is no 4th class. <3 2 Reply @Navyblue0785 @Navyblue0785 5 years ago What an inspiring story! The Four Percent Challenge and Strangest secret brought me to the discovery of Dr. Arnold Schweitzer Reply @elvirapettersson6566 @elvirapettersson6566 9 years ago wow!! I'm an schweitzer and albert is probably a long away relative to me kinda cool!! Feel proud to be a part of the schweitzer family!! 7 Reply @johnrobinson1762 @johnrobinson1762 4 years ago I loved Schweitzer's quote on Africa. He tried so hard to alleviate quote Reply @carlobenatti5204 @carlobenatti5204 8 years ago It's wonderful!! Thank you, doctor Schweitzer. 15 Reply @CLASSICALFAN100 @CLASSICALFAN100 6 years ago Dr. Schweitzer isn't the only multi-talented genius to consider. Erica Andersen filmed this documentary under ATROCIOUS circumstances! The film would literally "melt in the camera" due to the extreme heat in equatorial Africa. She believed in Dr. Schweitzer's mission, and had worked as a RN in his hospital for 7 years, then (finally!) the Good Doctor said to her, "Erica, do you still want to make that film about my life?" She, of course, replied "Yes, Yes!" To which he replied, "Then, go ahead!" Her work of genius won the Best Documentary Academy Award for 1957. Also, be sure to read "In Africa With Schweitzer" by Dr. Edgar Berman... 6 Reply 2 replies @paullillebo3969 @paullillebo3969 6 years ago Thank you for this great upload about a great man. 6 DianeDi Reply @normalguyable @normalguyable 11 years ago animals suffer as much as we do until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace. well said albert. now lets close down all slaughterhouses and end this murder 1 Reply @greengrassofhome @greengrassofhome 5 years ago (edited) In Go Set a Watchman, Jean Louise Finch says: "I want to be like Dr Schweitzer and play until I'm thirty.", presumably referring to his organ playing and obviously his life before going to Africa. So much like Jean Louise to admire this man. He has all the qualities she and Atticus tried to live by: musical, smart, humanitarian and a great affection for the negro, simply a wonderful man. We should all try to be more like Dr Schweitzman. Reply @dudleydelany8186 @dudleydelany8186 10 years ago Fascinating! Thank you for posting this video on YouTube! 1 Reply @janewalls6254 @janewalls6254 5 years ago What an extraordinary human being. Just wow! Reply @orlandominichiello @orlandominichiello 5 months ago A gentle genius. Reply @sunsetequines8863 @sunsetequines8863 4 years ago I am writing an essay on him so this will hopefully help! 1 Reply @myriamshwayri7976 @myriamshwayri7976 5 years ago Hi DianeD Can we use excerpts from this documentary or are there any copyrights issue to deal with? Thanks! Reply DianeDi · 1 reply @maddie7444 @maddie7444 6 years ago What a great decent human being ,like Jesus. 2 Reply @edcarter4779 @edcarter4779 5 years ago This is a black and white version of the color original, which is preserved by the Museum of Modern Art. Reply @timothyschweitzer8209 @timothyschweitzer8209 8 years ago Blood relation. This guy was the man. 19 Reply 3 replies @Stolarz1987 @Stolarz1987 12 years ago Thank You so much for this! Reply @user-wo5if1ef7n @user-wo5if1ef7n 5 years ago (edited) I’m blood related to this guy, very closely related No for real... he is apart of my family Reply 1 reply @knutholt3486 @knutholt3486 5 years ago Albert Schweitzer was one of the contemporary persons we learned to look up to as heroes in the school. Even as a child I was scheptical about the rightfulness of these hero declarations, and even more now. Too many of them has shown to be rather anti-heroes, like Mother Theresa. but perhaps this man deserved the status. Reply 1 reply @ww7779 @ww7779 6 years ago you are my idol . 1 Reply @DianeDi @DianeDi 12 years ago @Stolarz1987 Glad you enjoyed ;o) Reply @sphinx587 @sphinx587 11 years ago One great men Reply @DianeDi @DianeDi 10 years ago Thanks pal ! I posted the link in the video description. Reply @TheQuest2quest @TheQuest2quest 7 years ago Doesn't look like much has changed. Reply @MikaylaTgirl @MikaylaTgirl 10 years ago At 0:57:32 Wow that sounds messed up at least to me. Reply @justcallmeassinine @justcallmeassinine 8 years ago People today are all full of talk and ideals. But they rarely devote their life to their ideals.Just talk a good talk but never do the walk like Schweitzer, Ghandi, Mother Theresa, and so many others. 14 Reply 3 replies @norakim4875 @norakim4875 8 years ago Still remember him? . 6 Reply @SoldiersofSelfMastery @SoldiersofSelfMastery 6 years ago Today Men Simply Don't Think! Albert Schweitzer Reply @DianeDi @DianeDi 11 years ago @bauxxx Thank you and I agree, however, what is the chance of getting a teenager these days to sit through this? Their brains are so fired up and stimulated with all the latest high tech and high def technology, they would no doubt find this uninteresting. So sad . . . . . I grew up with B & W so this looks good to me ;O) Reply 1 reply @FLOTRED @FLOTRED 6 years ago 10'20"" they speak alsacian dialect Reply @jesusgonzalez-xd3oh @jesusgonzalez-xd3oh 7 years ago spanish???? :( 1 Reply @richard6025 @richard6025 5 years ago Why is Allie posting this Reply @josephjasen1293 @josephjasen1293 8 years ago This man?? James Cameron will beg to differ!! 1 Reply @destructor759 @destructor759 8 years ago h libe daas widio Reply @raulraul7085 @raulraul7085 4 years ago (edited) Long winder ass video Reply @thebestofallworlds187 @thebestofallworlds187 6 years ago this guy a Jew? Reply 1 reply @stylusfantasticus @stylusfantasticus 4 months ago St Francis of Asis of the XX Century.- 1 Reply