生活是一条没办法选择的路，人需要美妙的事物。大家或许会为了某一刻的美妙怡人的感觉而一个人心醉神迷，或许会为了某一次的慷慨悲歌而痛哭流涕，发现了生活的短暂。
《我为什么而活》简单的介绍了罗素的一生，旨在让读者对罗素其人获得一个较为感性的认知。但罗素的最大收获仍是在逻辑和哲学范围，对于感兴趣知道罗素生活观的读者，可以参阅本书。
Who am I living for
我为什么而活
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.
三种简单却极其强烈的情感主宰着我的生活：对爱的渴望、对常识的追求、对人类痛苦的很难承受的怜悯之心。这三种情感，像一阵阵飓风一样，任意地将我吹的飘来荡去，越过痛苦的海洋，抵达绝望的彼岸。
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 least ? I have found.
我探寻爱，第一，由于它让人心醉神迷，这种沉醉是这样美妙，以至于我想用余生来换取那几个小时的快乐。我探寻爱，第二是由于它会减轻孤独，置身于那种可怕的孤独中，颤抖的灵魂在世界的边缘，看到冰冷的、死寂的、无底深渊。我探寻爱，还由于在爱水乳?交融时，在一个神秘的缩影中，我见到了先贤和诗大家所想象的、预览的天堂。 这就是我所追求的，尽管对于凡人来讲，这仿佛是一种奢望。但这是我最后找到的。
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 over the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
我曾以同样的热情来追求常识。我期望能理解人类的心灵，期望能了解为何星星会发光。我也过去努力理解毕达哥拉斯学派的理论，他们觉得数字主载着万物的此消彼长。我知道了一点常识，但不多。
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 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.
爱和常识，可以最大可能地，将人带入天堂。可是，怜悯一直将我带回地面。大家因痛苦而发出的哭声在我心中久久回响，那些饥荒中的孩子们，被压迫者摧残的受害者们，被子女视为可憎负担的、无助的老大家，与那无处不在的孤单、贫穷和无助都在讽刺着人类所本应该有些生活。我渴望可以消除人世间的邪恶，可是心有余而力不足，我一个人也同样遭受着它们的折磨。
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
这就是我的生活。我感觉活一场是值得的。假如给我机会的话，我想高兴地，再活一次。
学会词语
overwhelmingly [ˌəʊvəˈwɛlmɪŋlɪ] 压倒性地，不可抵抗地
unbearable [ʌnˈbɛərəbəl] 很难承受的
wayward [ˈweɪwəd] 任性的，固执的
miniature [ˈmɪnɪtʃə] 微型的；小规模的
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