Bertrand Russell
伯特蘭·羅素
Three passions, simply 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.
有三種質樸而又十分強烈的激情一直支配著我的人生，這就是對愛的渴望、對知識的求索和對人類苦難的無限憐憫。這三種激情，有如狂風挾我四海漂泊，遊移不定，直至苦海的深淵，瀕臨絕望的邊緣。
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy -ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of 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.
我尋求愛，首先在於愛能帶來狂喜——它是如此令人心醉神迷，我願捨棄餘生來換取片刻的歡樂；我尋求愛，還因為愛消除孤獨——那種當一個顫抖的靈魂從世界的邊緣透視那冰冷、荒涼的無盡深淵時感到的那種孤獨；此外，我所以尋求愛，還因為在愛的交融中，我看見了聖者和詩人所預想的天堂景象的神秘縮影，這正是我心中之所求，雖然人生似乎難臻此境，我最終卻不負所求。
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.
我懷著同樣的激情來探索知識。我希望能夠理解眾人之心，我渴望了解星星緣何閃光，我也曾努力領會畢達哥拉斯賦予數的力量——主宰萬物流變之力。我雖未創斐然之績，卻也還算小有所成。
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.
愛和知識竭力引導著我超凡入聖，但憐憫又把我拉回了凡塵。聲聲悲號在我心中迴響不絕。飢餓的孩子、慘遭壓迫的苦難者、因依附兒子而被視為可憎重負的無助老人以及整個孤獨、貧困和痛苦的世界是對人們理想人生的嘲諷。我渴望減輕罪惡，卻又無能為力，我也同樣感到痛苦。
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
這就是我的人生。我覺得自己並未虛度此生，若有可能，我將欣然再活一次。