It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it ws the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way. -- Charles Dickens

What I Have Lived For

罗素自传序言——我为什么活着

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 great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

　　三种朴素而又异常强烈的感情一直统治着我的一生：渴望爱，追求知识和对人类苦难的无法容忍的怜悯。这三种感情像飓风一样，把我在痛苦的海洋中吹得忽东忽西，难以捉摸，直把我吹到绝望的边缘。

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 sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what–at last–I have found.

　 　我寻求爱，首先是因为爱给我带来如此之大的欣喜，使我心醉神迷以致我常常愿意牺牲我的余生来换取几个小时的欣喜之情。我寻求爱，其次是因为爱可以解脱孤 独－－那可怕的孤独就好像一个毛骨悚然的人从世界的边缘探望令人胆战心寒的毫无生气的人们所幻想的天堂神秘雏型。这就是我所寻求的，虽然这可能似乎是人生 难以得 到的美好事物，可这就是－－终于－－我所找到的。

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.

　　我以同样的感情探索知识。我想理解人们的心。我想知道为什么星星会发光。我尽力领悟毕达哥拉斯使数字支配变化着的事物的才能。在探索知识方面，我只取得了一点儿成绩，但还不很多。

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 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 this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

　　爱和知识，尽其可能把人引向天堂。可是不断的怜悯把我带回到人间。痛苦的呼号声在我心中激荡。饥饿的儿童，在压迫者折磨下的受难者，孤独无 助已成为子女们厌恶的负担的老人们，整个孤独、贫困与痛苦的世界都在嘲弄人生的本来面目。我渴望减轻邪恶，但我力所不及，我也在受苦难。

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

　　这就是我的一生。我一直觉得我的一生过得很有价值。如果可能，我愿意再过这样的一生。