Out of My Life and Thought (Albert Schweitzer Library)
by Albert Schweitzer
List Price:
Our Price: $13.01
You Save: $6.99 (35%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.97 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Albert SchweitzerTranslator: Antje Bultmann Lemke
Preface: Antje Bultmann Lemke
Preface: Rhena Schweitzer Miller
Foreword: Jimmy Carter
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-10-14
ISBN: 0801860970
Number of pages: 296
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Product features:
- Paperback with portrait of Albert Schweitzer. 272
Book Reviews of Out of My Life and Thought (Albert Schweitzer Library)
Book Review: Schweitzer's life and thought:
Summary: 5 Stars
"Since my first years at the university I had grown increasingly to doubt the idea that mankind is steadily moving toward improvement. My impression was that the fire of its ideas was burning out without anyone noticing or worrying about it. ... What was just and equitable seemed to be pursued with only lukewarm zeal. I noticed a number of symptoms of intellectual and spiritual fatigue in this generation that is so proud of its achievements."Albert Schweitzer was a man of action -- humanitarian, theologian, historian, musician, musical technologist, medical doctor, author, philosopher, missionary, professor, environmentalist, prisoner of war, recipient of the Nobel Prize. He writes an interesting autobiography, which is not surprising when one considers the breadth of his interests and of his achievements in science, the humanities and the arts. In his later years he was perhaps the most widely admired and respected person in the Western world.
Jimmy Carter offers a foreword in this volume; it is economical, a mere six sentences. Schweitzer's philosophical work may be well studied, but does not particularly distinguish itself in this volume (with some notable exceptions). His theological work (i.e., Christology) is generally questionable -- bound to Enlightenment fallacies of a "historical Jesus." I was happy to be concurrently reading the thoughts of a far better theologian, CS Lewis, on the idea of "discovering" a "historical" Jesus. While some of Schweitzer's ideas are [rightly] not highly regarded, his "life and thought" makes for unusually interesting biography. His "reverence for life" precept certainly has great value, but seems to be a less profoundly unique idea than he held it to be. Perhaps my view here is merely ignorant of the world in which Schweitzer lived.
He considered this book to be his best, or at least his preferred, writing, but if you are going to read only one book considering theological and historical exegetics, this is probably the wrong book. On the other hand, Schweitzer makes many observations cleanly and powerfully: "Our world rots in deceit. Our very attempt to manipulate truth itself brings us to ... [a truth] based on a skepticism that has become belief... It is superficial and inflexible." Kant had observed the intellectual paralysis of such "a skepticism that has become belief," but Schweitzer goes further, recognizing it as an even deeper spiritual paralysis.
While Schweitzer's Christology is, at the least, arguable, his firm commitment to Christ's commandment of love is a strong example of the Christian life led in the light of its Teacher's example. The author is [rightly] given to referring to Christianity as "the religion of love." In this aspect, Schweitzer at once offers the non-Christian a true image of Christianity and offers the Christian an important, if gentle, reminder. "[God] announces Himself in us as the will to love. The First Cause of Being, as He manifests Himself in nature, is to us always impersonal. To the First Cause of Being that is revealed to us in the will to love, however, we relate as to an ethical personality." And quoting Paul: "Love never faileth: but where there be knowledge it shall be done away."
Summary of Out of My Life and Thought (Albert Schweitzer Library)
" Out of My Life and Thought shatters the old myth and allows us to glimpse the real Albert Schweitzer, a man whose moral example is as relevant and compelling in the 1990s as it was in the 1930s on first publication. Eloquent and heartfelt."? Los Angeles Times
Of the many highly esteemed books Albert Schweitzer penned in his life, he valued his autobiography the most. He had become a legend and he wanted to remind readers that he was just a man, and a man who had learned from many others. He had been fortunate to be in the right places at the right times, to meet people of thought and sympathy. He wanted to report his debts to them. He wanted to clarify his reasons and methods for his undertakings and to respond to some of his critics. And, he wished to honor something greater than he was?reverence for life. Reverence for Life became his life's motto, and it brought him pain as well as joy as he sought to respect how precious and unique each life is. Schweitzer believed there was a way to live in the world, accept it, take joy from it?and who could know this better than a man who had placed himself so much in it, given so much for it, and had been ready to receive experience as a gift to be thankful for.
In addition to a preface by Rhena Schweitzer Miller and Antje Bultmann Lemke, this translation incorporates revisions and additions Schweitzer made for the French translation of 1960 and those he made for thirty years in his own copy of the original German edition.
"This fascinating volume is the autobiography of the world-famous missionary doctor, organist, philosopher, theologian, and Nobel Peace Prize-winner, newly translated, researched, and corrected on the basis of recently discovered material."? Booklist
"An authentic twentieth-century classic. Few books in our time have had a greater impact on the life and values of untold numbers of people."?Norman Cousins
Out of My Life and Thought is the autobiography of Albert Schweitzer, the theologian, musician, scientist, and medical missionary who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 (and donated his prize to build a leper colony). Schweitzer's autobiography is a masterful and motley blend of confession, narrative, adventure, and philosophy. The chapters about how he came to write The Quest for the Historical Jesus and The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle are indispensable summaries of and apologies for those books; the chapter called "I Resolve to Become a Jungle Doctor" is a model of Rilke-style life-changing decision; and the chapters on Bach and on organs are full of fascinating historical and mechanical detail. For contemporary readers, Out of My Life and Thought may be most compelling for its epilogue, which describes the ethical mysticism that Schweitzer called "Reverence for Life," which he achieved in his later years. The epilogue is full of stirringly Germanic passages such as the following: "Once man begins to think about the mystery of his life and the links connecting him with the life that fills the world, he cannot but accept, for his own life and all other life that surrounds him, the principle of Reverence for Life. He will act according to this principle of the ethical affirmation of life in everything he does. His life will become in every respect more difficult than if he lived for himself, but at the same time it will be richer, more beautiful, and happier. It will become, instead of mere living, a genuine experience of life." Because Schweitzer believed Christianity implied such world-encompassing reverence, he had the confidence and faith to "demand from Christianity that it reform itself in the spirit of sincerity and with thoughtfulness, so it may become conscious of its true nature." --Michael Joseph Gross
Christianity Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Christianity Books
The Problem of Pain CDby C. S. Lewis
HarperAudio; Published: 2004-06-01; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $15.36
Price in other shops:
Catholicism: New Study Edition--Completely Revised and Updatedby Richard P. McBrien
HarperOne; Published: 1994-05-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $21.07
Price in other shops:
Theirs Is the Kingdom: Celebrating the Gospel in Urban Americaby Robert D. Lupton
HarperOne; Published: 2011-10-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.96
Price in other shops:
The Hidden Book in the Bibleby Richard Elliott Friedman
HarperOne; Published: 1999-08-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
The Hidden Book in the Bibleby Richard Elliott Friedman
HarperOne; Published: 1998-09-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.31
Price in other shops:
Jesus: A Revolutionary Biographyby John Dominic Crossan
Harpercollins; Published: 1994-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.74
Price in other shops:
Exploring Heaven: What Great Christian Thinkers Tell Us About Our Afterlife with Godby Arthur O. Roberts
HarperSanFrancisco; Published: 2003-08-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
THE PROBLEM OF PAINby C. S. Lewis
Fontana; Published: 1979; Paperback; Book
New Testament Greek for Beginnersby J. Gresham Machen
Prentice Hall; Published: 1923-03-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $74.00
Price in other shops:
Mere Christianityby C. S. Lewis
Prentice Hall & IBD; Published: 1978-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.93
Similar Books and other products
The Words of Albert Schweitzer (Newmarket "Words Of" Series)by Norman Cousins
Newmarket Press; Published: 1999-06-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $61.06
Albert Schweitzer: Restored and UncutRelease date: 2005-11-08; DVD
Best price: $6.75
Price in other shops:
The Primeval Forest (The Albert Schweitzer Library)by Albert Schweitzer
The Johns Hopkins University Press; Published: 1998-07-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.98
Price in other shops:
Memoirs of Childhood and Youthby Albert Schweitzer
Syracuse University Press; Published: 1997-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.51
Price in other shops:
Albert Schweitzer: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters)by James Brabazon
Orbis Books; Published: 2005-10-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.94
Price in other shops:
Reverence for Life: The Ethics of Albert Schweitzer for the Twenty-First CenturySyracuse University Press; Published: 2002-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.88
Price in other shops:
Animals, Nature, and Albert SchweitzerFlying Fox Pr; Published: 1988-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.50
Price in other shops:
Philosophy of Civilizationby Albert Schweitzer
Prometheus Books; Published: 1987-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.13
Price in other shops:
The Quest of the Historical Jesusby Albert Schweitzer
Dover Publications; Published: 2005-02-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.75
Price in other shops:
Albert Schweitzer: A Biography (The Albert Schweitzer Library)by James Brabazon
Syracuse Univ Pr (Sd); Published: 2000-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.00
Price in other shops: