我為什麽活著-羅素 ZT

        對愛情的渴望，對知識的追求，對人類苦難不可遏製的同情，是支配我一生的單純而強烈的三種感情。這些感情如陣陣巨風，吹拂在我動蕩不定的生涯中，有時甚至吹過深沉痛苦的海洋，直抵絕望的邊緣。

　　我所以追求愛情，有三方麵的原因。首先，愛情有時給我帶來狂喜，這種狂喜竟如此有力，以致使我常常會為了體驗幾小時愛的喜悅，而寧願犧牲生命中其他一切。其次，愛情可以擺脫孤寂——身曆那種可怕孤寂的人的戰栗意識，有時會由世界的邊緣，觀察到冷酷無生命的無底深淵。最後，在愛的結合中，我看到了古今聖賢以及詩人們所夢想的天堂的縮影，這正是我所追尋的人生境界。雖然它對一般的人類生活也許太美好了，但這正是我透過愛情所得到場最終發現。

　　我曾以同樣的感情追求知識，我渴望去了解人類的。也渴望知道星星為什麽會發光，同時我還想理解畢達哥拉斯的力量。

　　愛情與知識的可能領域，總是引領我到天堂的境界，可對人類苦難的同情經常把我帶回現實世界。那些痛苦的呼喚經常在我內心深處引起回響。饑餓中的孩子，被壓迫被折磨者，給子女造成重擔的孤苦無依的老人，以及全球性的孤獨、貧窮和痛苦的存在，是對人類生活理想的無視和諷刺。我常常希望能盡自己的微薄之力去減輕這不必要的痛苦，但我發現我完全失敗了，因此我自己也感到很痛苦。

　　這就是我的一生，我發現人是值得活的。如果有誰再給我一次生活的機會，我將欣然接受這難得的賜予。

本文為伯蘭特·羅素自傳前言。

英文版：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 great 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 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 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.

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

[羅素語錄]
1. To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
須知參差多態乃是幸福之本源。

2. Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. 恐懼是迷信的主要溫床，也是殘忍的主要溫床。 征服恐懼是智慧的開端。

3. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
戰爭不決定誰對了，隻決定誰留下了。

4．We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.
我們正麵臨一個非常矛盾的事實，即教育已經成為一個主要的智力和自由思想的障礙。

5．Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
生活隻不過是一場成為罪犯而不是受害者的競爭。

6. I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
我絕不會為我的信仰而獻身，因為我可能是錯的。

7. Desires keep man restless even in Paradise.
欲望使人即使到了天堂也會坐立不安

8. To realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
意識到時間並不重要乃是智慧之門。

9. Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
言論自由隻有在政府認為它自身安全的時候才存在。

10. It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
使我們無法自由和高尚地活著的最主要原因是對財富的迷戀。

11. The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
世界充滿了神奇的東西，它們在耐心地等待我們變得更有智慧。

12 The secret to happiness is this: Let your interest be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
幸福的秘訣是：讓你的興趣盡量的擴大，讓你對人對物的反應，盡量的傾於友善。

13 It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
據說人是一種理性動物。窮我自己一生，我都在尋找這觀點的證據。
 
14 Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
人是輕信的動物，必須得相信點什麽。如果這種信仰沒有什麽好的依據，糟糕的依據也能對付。

15 In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors.
在美國，所有人都認為沒有什麽人比他的社會地位高，因為人人生而平等。但是，他可不承認沒有人比他社會地位低。