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What I have lived for
Three passions,simple but overwhelmingly1) 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 thither2),in a way－ward course,over a deep ocean of anguish,reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love,first,because it brings ecstasy3)－－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 abyss4).I have sought it,finally,because in the union of love I have seen,in a mystic miniature5),the prefiguring6) 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 know ledge.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 Pythagorean7) 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 the heavens.But always pity brought me back to earth.Echoes of cries of pain reverberate8) in my heart.Children in famine,victims tortured by oppressors,helpless old people a hated burden to their sons,and the whole of loneliness,poverty,and pain make a mockery9) of what human life should be.I long to alleviate the evil,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.
(From Russell' s Views on Life)
