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 deep 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 my life for a few hours for 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 hated 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 the 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.

我一生的追求

（也译“我一生中的激情”）

          伯特兰·罗素

郭生虎译

有三种激情——三种简单却极为强烈的激情，支配者我的一生：对爱的渴望，对知识的追求，以及对人类苦难的无限怜悯之情。这三种激情，犹如阵阵飓风，将我吹得四处飘零，把我吹过痛苦海洋的上空，直把我吹到绝望的边缘。

我追求爱情，首先是因为爱情使我陶醉——陶醉到往往使我愿意为这几小时欢乐而牺牲我生命中的其它一切；我追求爱情，其次是因为爱情能使我摆脱孤独——在那可怕的孤独中，一颗颤抖的灵魂站在世界的边缘，俯视着下面冰冷、毫无生气、深不可测的深渊；我追求爱情，更是因为在爱情的结合和神秘的缩影中，我看到了那个圣人和诗人想象的天堂景象。这就是我所追寻的，尽管这对于芸芸众生来说可望而不可及，它却是我——最终——寻得的。

我怀着同样的激情追求知识。我渴望了解人心，我想知道星星为什么会发光，我还试图弄懂毕达哥拉斯学说的哲学力量——数字定律亘古不变的道理。在这方面，我略有所获，但仍不理想。

爱和知识，竭尽它们所能，引领我接近天堂，但怜悯之情又常常把我带回到尘世之上。痛苦呼喊的回声震荡着我的心灵。忍饥挨饿的孩童，被压迫者欺压的受难者，成为子孙们累赘的无助的老人，以及整个充斥着寂寞、贫穷、痛苦的世界，所有这一切都是对人生莫大的讽刺！我渴望减少邪恶，但我无能为力，且因此身心蒙受其害！

这就是我的一生啊，我认为此生活得很值，而且我将愿意再活一次，如果我有这个机会的话。