[转载]What I Have Lived For

    Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the 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 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 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 have sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this 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.

译文：我一生的追求

    三种激情，简单而又无比强烈的激情 ——支配了我一生：对爱的渴望，对知识的追求，以及对人类的苦难不堪忍受的怜悯之情。这三种激情，有如飓风，把我刮到了天南海北，使我命途多舛，经历了痛苦的深海，也到过极度绝望的边缘。

    我曾追求爱，首先是因为它能使人陶醉——使人深深地陶醉，以至于我愿牺牲全部余生来换取片刻的这种欢快。我曾追求爱，其次是因为它能排遣孤独——在这种孤独中，人的意识战战兢兢，看破滚滚红尘，俯视着那冰冷的、死气沉沉的、深不可测的地狱。我曾寻求它，最终是因为在爱的结合中我看到了一幅神秘的缩影，展示了圣贤和诗人想象中所预先构建的天堂景象。这就是我所追求的，尽管它可能显得太美好而非芸芸众生所能企及，但是我最终还是得到了它。

    我曾以同样的激情追求知识。我曾希望理解人心，我曾希望了解星辰何以光芒照耀，我也曾尽力领悟那种得以使数字支配万物流变的毕达哥拉斯之幂的力量。对此我稍有所得，但收获并不很多。

    爱情与知识，尽其可能引人向上升入天堂，但是怜悯之情总是把我带回到大地。痛哭的回声震荡在我心中：孩子们在挨饿，受害者在遭受压迫者折磨，无依无靠的老人成了他们子女们可憎的负担，整个人世间充满了孤独、贫困和痛苦，这都在嘲弄着人类生活的理想。我渴望能消灾灭难，却无能为力，反而深受其害。

    这就是我的一生。我觉得此生值得度过，而且如果给我机会我也愿欣然重度此生。