伯蘭特.羅素（1872-1970）,英國著名哲學家、數學家和文學家。他在多個領域都取得了巨大成就。他所著的《西方的智慧》、《西方哲學史》對中國讀者影響很大。

What I Have Lived ForBertrand 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 verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy --- ecstasy so great that I would 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 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 away 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 reverberated 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 I would gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me.

我為何而活

伯蘭特.羅素

三種簡單卻極其強烈的情感主宰著我的生活：對愛的渴望、對知識的追求、對人類痛苦的難以承受的憐憫之心。這三種情感，像一陣陣颶風一樣，任意地將我吹的飄來蕩去，越過痛苦的海洋，抵達絕望的彼岸。

我尋找愛，首先，因為它令人心醉神迷，這種沉醉是如此美妙，以至于我愿意用余生來換取那幾個小時的快樂。我尋找愛，其次是因為它會減輕孤獨，置身于那種可怕的孤獨中，顫抖的靈魂在世界的邊緣，看到冰冷的、死寂的、無底深淵。我尋找愛，還因為在愛水乳交融時，在一個神秘的縮影中，我見到了先賢和詩人們所想象的、預覽的天堂。 這就是我所追求的，盡管對于凡人來說，這好像是一種奢望。但這是我最終找到的。