Author: Bertrand Arthur William Russell
人的一生有大大小小很多个愿望，小到考试拿第一，找个好工作，拥有自己的别墅；大至找到一个相知相惜的爱人，成为一个名人，能够周游世界……
谈及愿望，英国著名哲学家罗素这样说：我的一生中有三个愿望，淳朴而激越。渴望爱情、求索知识和对人类苦难的无限悲悯。
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…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.
Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872 - 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, essayist, and social critic, best known for his work in mathematical logic and analytic philosophy.
From: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/language_tips/
我的一生追寻（《我为什么活着》）
——罗素自传的序
翻译：文学城 宋哲学
三种情感，
简单而又汹涌澎湃，
占据了我的一生：
对爱的渴望，
对知识的寻访，
还有那难以压抑的对人类苦难的怜伤。
这些情感吹打着我，
就像那狂风一样，
来回晃荡，
反复无常，
越过痛苦的海洋，
来到绝望的身旁。
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我追寻爱，
因为它令人陷入沉醉——
是那么的令人沉醉，
以至于我，
愿意以我剩下的全部生命，
来换取那仅仅几个小时的甜美。
我追寻爱，
还因为它让人远离孤单——
是那么可怕的孤单
好似一个战栗的灵魂，
从那世界的边缘，
探向那冰冷又毫无生气的无底深渊。
我追寻爱，
更因为在爱的结合中，
我看到了神秘的景象：
那景象，
就是圣徒和诗人们所想象着的——天堂。
这就是我追寻着的，
虽然它或许，
对人的一生太过美妙，
然而最终，
我已寻到。
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以同样的情感，
我追寻知识。
我想看到人们的内心的深处，
我想探究星星的为什么发光。
我还想领略毕达哥拉斯的力量——
那种支配着万物变化的数字力量。
一点点的，
不多的，
我已追上。
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爱和知识，
尽其可能地引领着我通向天堂；
然而怜伤，
又总是将我带回尘世之上。
痛苦的呼号在我的内心回荡：
忍饥挨饿的孩童，
备受欺压者折磨的受害者，
被自己子女视为累赘的无助老人，
连同着这整个充满了孤独、贫穷、痛苦的世界，
让人类的生活，
沦落成为笑谈的对象。
我想减少这样的罪恶，
然而我无能为力——
我也在忍受创伤。
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这就是我的一生，
值得一过的一生。
如果能再给我一次机会，
我愿意再来一次——
这样的一生。
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