An inspiring story
Hippos on the river
Where do your best ideas come to you?
Albert Schweitzer was a famous theologian, organist and philosopher, yet he gave it all up to become a doctor in the African jungle. For days he had been searching for one simple idea that could hold all of ethics together. In September 1915 he was on a slow river boat on the Ogooué, at sunset, passing through a herd of hippos. At that moment the words came to him: 'reverence for life'. Why there? Perhaps because, surrounded by so much life, he suddenly saw that all of it is precious.
He spent the rest of his life living it out in his hospital at Lambaréné. The idea did not come at a desk, but on a river.
I am life that wills to live, in the midst of life that wills to live.Albert Schweitzer