What I have Lived for
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. 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 it 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.
譯文：
我的一生被三種簡(jiǎn)單卻又無(wú)比強(qiáng)烈的激情所控制：對(duì)愛(ài)的渴望，對(duì)知識(shí)的探索和對(duì)人類(lèi)苦難難以抑制的嶼。這些激情像狂風(fēng)，把我恣情吹向四方，掠過(guò)苦痛的大海，迫使我瀕臨絕望的邊緣。
我尋求愛(ài)，首先因?yàn)樗刮倚臑橹�，這種難以名狀的美妙迷醉使我愿意用所有的余生去換取哪怕幾個(gè)小時(shí)這樣的幸福。我尋求愛(ài)，還因?yàn)樗芫徑馕倚睦砩系墓陋?dú)中，我感覺(jué)心靈的戰(zhàn)栗，仿如站在世界的邊緣而面前是冰冷，無(wú)底的死亡深淵。我尋求愛(ài)，因?yàn)樵谖宜慷玫慕Y(jié)合中，我仿佛看到了圣賢與詩(shī)人們所向往的天堂之景。這就是我所尋找的，雖然對(duì)人的一生而言似乎有些遙不可及，但至少是我用盡一生所領(lǐng)悟到的。
我用同樣的激情去尋求知識(shí)。我希望能理解人類(lèi)的心靈，希望能夠知道群星閃爍的緣由。我試圖領(lǐng)悟畢達(dá)哥拉斯所景仰的“數(shù)即萬(wàn)物”的思想。我已經(jīng)悟出了其中的一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)道理，盡管并不是很多。
愛(ài)和知識(shí)，用它們的力量把人引向天堂。但是同情卻總把人又拽回到塵世中來(lái)。痛苦的呼喊聲回蕩在我的內(nèi)心。饑餓的孩子，受壓迫的難民，貧窮和痛苦的世界，都是對(duì)人類(lèi)所憧憬的美好生活的無(wú)情嘲弄。我渴望能夠減少邪惡，但是我無(wú)能為力，我也難逃其折磨。
這就是我的一生。我已經(jīng)找到它的價(jià)值。而且如果有機(jī)會(huì)，我很愿意能再活它一次。
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