羅素：我為何而生
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, haveblown me hither and thither,in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
有三種單純然而無比強烈的感情左右了我的一生：對愛的渴望，對知識的探索和對人類苦難不可遏製的同情。這些感情如陣陣颶風，無處不在、反複無常地吹拂著我，吹過深重的苦海，直抵絕望的邊緣。
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 relievesloneliness--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 iswhat I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.
我尋找愛，首先是因為它使人心醉神迷，這種陶醉是如此的美妙，使我願意犧牲所有的餘生去換取幾小時愛的喜悅。我尋找愛，因為愛情可以擺脫孤寂——身曆那種可怕孤寂的人戰栗的意識有時會由世界的邊緣看到冰冷、無底、死寂的深淵。最後，我尋找愛，還因為在愛的交融中，我看到了古今聖賢以及詩人們所夢想的天堂的縮影，這正是我所追尋的人生境界。雖然它對一般的人類生活也許太美好，但這正是我透過愛情所得到的最終發現。
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, Ihave achieved.
我曾以同樣的感情追求知識，我渴望去了解人類的心靈，也渴望知道群星為何閃爍。我試圖領悟畢達哥拉斯所景仰的數字力量，它支配著此消彼漲。僅在不大的一定程度上，我達到了此目的。
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 amockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I can't, and I too suffer.
愛情與知識的可及領域，總是引領我到天堂的境界，可對人類苦難的同情卻經常把我帶回現實世界。那些痛苦的呼喚經常在我內心深處激起回響，饑餓中的孩子，被壓迫被折磨著，給子女造成重擔的孤苦無依的老人，以及全球無情的孤獨、貧窮和痛苦的存在，是對人類生活理想的無視和諷刺。我常常希望能盡自己的微薄之力去減輕這不必要的痛苦，但我發現我完全失敗了，因此我自己也感到很痛苦。
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live itagain if the chance were offered me.
這就是我的一生，我發現它值得一過。如果有誰再給我一次生活的機會，我將欣然接受這難得的賜予。
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