罗素：我为什么而活？（中英文）

nike

有三种简单然而无比强烈的激情左右了我的一生
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life


对爱的渴望，对知识的探索和对人类苦难的难以忍受的怜悯。
the longing for love, the search for knowledge,and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.


这些激情象飓风，无处不在、反复无常地吹拂着我，吹过深重的苦海，濒于绝境。
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.


我寻找爱，首先是因为它使人心醉神迷，这种陶醉是如此的美妙，使我愿意牺牲所有的余生去换取几个小时这样的欣喜。
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.


我寻找爱，还因为它解除孤独，在可怕的孤独中，一颗颤抖的灵魂从世界的边缘看到冰冷、无底、死寂的深渊。
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.


最后，我寻找爱，还因为在爱的交融中，神秘而又具体而微地，我看到了圣贤和诗人们想象出的天堂的前景。
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.


这就是我所寻找的，而且，虽然对人生来说似乎过于美妙，这也是我终于找到了的。
I have sought it, This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what --at last -- I have found.


以同样的激情我探索知识。
With equal passion I have sought knowledge.


我希望能够理解人类的心灵。
I have wished to understand the hearts of men


我希望能够知道群星为何闪烁。
I have wished to know why the stars shine.


我试图领悟毕达哥拉斯所景仰的数字力量，它支配着此消彼涨。仅在不大的一定程度 上，我达到了此目的。
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.


爱和知识，只要有可能，通向着天堂。
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens.


但是怜悯总把我带回尘世。痛苦呼喊的回声回荡在我的内心。
But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart.


忍饥挨饿的孩子，惨遭压迫者摧残的受害者，被儿女们视为可憎的负担的无助的老人，连同这整个充满了孤独、贫穷和痛苦的世界，使人类所应有的生活成为了笑柄。我渴望能够减少邪恶，但是我无能为力，而且我自己也在忍受折磨。
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 can''t , and I too suffer.

这就是我的一生。我发现它值得一过。如果再给我一次机会，我会很高兴地再活它一次。
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly e live it again if the chance were offered me.

arahatta

彻底的唯物主义者是无所畏惧的,我死之后,哪管他洪水滔天。结果就是变成了一帮“既不信上帝，也不信魔鬼，徘徊在地狱边缘甚至连下地狱都没有资格的可怜虫（海涅语）”