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.

    I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy---ecstasy so great that I would often have scrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relives loneliness---that terrible loneliness in which one shivering cousciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because on the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring version 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 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.

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

　　三种虽然质朴但很强烈的激情主宰着我的一生，它们是对爱的渴望、对知识的追求以及对人类的苦难难以遏制的同情。这三种激情犹如变化莫测的劲风，把我吹来吹去，濒临痛苦的深渊，直至绝望的边缘。

首先， 我追寻着爱，因为爱能带来愉悦，这种愉悦万分美妙，我愿意牺牲我生命中所有的一切来换取几个小时如此美妙的愉悦；其次，我追寻着爱，因为爱能减轻孤独，在那可怕的孤独中，一颗颤抖的灵魂处于世界的边缘，注视着那冰冷彻骨、毫无生机、暗不见底的地狱深渊；最后，我追寻着爱，因为在爱的融合中我看到了某种神秘的缩影，那是圣徒和诗人所描绘的天堂的胜景。这就是我所追求的，虽然它对于人生而言可能过于美好，但这正是我最终发现的东西。

　　我以同样的激情来追求知识。我渴望理解人心，我渴望了解星辰发光的奥秘，我尝试探究毕达哥拉斯以数字控制变化的魔力。虽然在这些方面我有些收获，但还远远不够。

爱和知识竭力把我引向天堂，但对人世间的怜悯却总是把我带回尘世，此起彼伏的哭声久久在我的心里回荡。饥饿的孩子，被压迫者摧残的平民，遭子女厌弃而无助的老人，以及充斥着整个世界孤独、贫穷和痛苦等无一不对人类应有的生活构成了莫大的嘲讽。我渴望能减少人世间的苦难，但我却做不到，并且也深受着它的折磨。

　　这就是我的人生，我认为它值得我活。如果上天再给我重新活过的机会，我会欣然接受。