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 verge of despair.
對愛的渴望、對知識的追求和對人類苦難難以忍受的憐憫之心-這三種樸素而不可抗拒的情感主宰著我的生活.這些情感似陣陣颶風,任意地把我吹得飄來蕩去,穿過痛苦的海洋,抵達絕望的彼岸.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy-ecstasy so great that I would 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 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.
我曾尋求過愛,首先是因為愛可以使人欣喜若狂-它是如此令人狂喜,為了片刻的歡娛,我寧願犧牲我的餘生；我曾尋求過愛,其次是因為它能解除人的孤獨感-置身於這可怕的孤獨中,那令人震顫的感覺,會掠過這個世界的邊緣,把人帶入無聲無息的寒氣襲人的無底深淵；我曾尋求過愛,還因為在愛的結合,在這一神秘的縮影中,我看到了聖賢和詩人們所曾幻想的天堂景色.這也正是我追求的.儘管這對世間凡人而言似乎是一種奢望,但這是我最終所找到的.
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 Pythagoreans power by which number holds away above the flux. A little of this, but, not much, I have achieved.
帶著同樣的激情,我曾追求過知識.我曾希望瞭解人類的心靈,我曾想知道星辰為何發光,我曾試圖理解畢達哥拉斯的力量,通過他的力量,數駕馭了萬物的變化.我獲得了一點知識,但並不多.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living. And I would gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me.
這就是我的生活,我覺得活得值.假若天賜良機,我願高高興興地再如此活一次.
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