人為什麼而活著？很多人有自己的想法。想法也有千種萬種！如果從哲學上討論，您會有什麼樣的看法？一起來看看英國偉大的哲學家Bertrand Russell（伯特蘭·羅素）對待這個問題的看法吧！

有中英文對照，還可以作為學習英語的材料喲！

What have I lived for【我為何而活】

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 great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

【對愛情的渴望，對知識的追求，對人類苦難不可遏制的同情，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，吹拂在我動盪不定的生涯中，有時甚至吹過深-沉痛苦的海洋，直抵絕望的邊緣。】

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.

【我所以追求愛情，有三方面的原因。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——身歷那種可怕孤寂的人的戰慄意識，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。】

羅素

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.

【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麼會發光，同時我還想理解畢達哥拉斯的力量。】

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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.

【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迴響。飢餓中的孩子，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。我常常希望能儘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。】

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

【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