對愛情的渴望轰驳，對知識的追求，對人類苦難不可遏制的同情心芭挽，這三種純潔而無比強烈的激情支配著我的一生滑废。這三種激情，就像颶風(fēng)一樣袜爪，在深深的苦海上蠕趁，肆意地把我吹來吹去，吹到瀕臨絕望的邊緣辛馆。
我尋求愛情俺陋，首先因為愛情給我?guī)砜裣不硌樱绱藦娏乙灾挛医?jīng)常愿意為了幾小時的歡愉而犧牲生命中的其他一切。我尋求愛情腊状，其次是因為愛情可以解除孤寂一—那是一顆震顫的心诱咏，在世界的邊緣，俯瞰那冰冷死寂缴挖、深不可測的深淵袋狞。我尋求愛情，最后是因為在愛情的結(jié)合中映屋，我看到圣徒和詩人們所想像的天堂景象的神秘縮影苟鸯。這就是我所尋求的，雖然它對人生似乎過于美好棚点，然而最終我還是得到了它早处。
我以同樣的熱情尋求知識，我渴望了解人的心靈瘫析。我渴望知道星星為什么閃閃發(fā)光砌梆，我試圖理解畢達哥拉斯的思想威力，即數(shù)字支配著萬物流轉(zhuǎn)贬循。這方面我獲得一些成就咸包，然而并不多。
愛情和知識甘有，盡其可能地把我引上天堂诉儒，但是同情心總把我?guī)Щ貕m世。痛苦的呼喚經(jīng)常在我心中回蕩亏掀，饑餓的兒童忱反，被壓迫被折磨者，被兒女視為負擔(dān)的無助的老人以及充滿孤寂滤愕、貧窮和痛苦的整個世界温算，都是對人類應(yīng)有生活的嘲諷。我渴望減輕這些不幸间影，但是我無能為力注竿，而且我自己也深受其害。
這就是我的一生魂贬，我覺得值得為它活著巩割。如果有機會的話，我還樂意再活一次付燥。
《What I Have Lived For》? by Bertrand Russell
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
