英文原文
中文翻譯
《三種激情》是選自《伯特蘭·羅素自傳》的一篇優秀散文。它既是作者心靈的抒發，也是生命體驗的總結。作者以深刻的感悟和敏銳的目光，分析了人生中的三種激情，即對愛的渴望，對知識的追求和對人類苦難的同情。對愛的渴望，使人欣喜若狂，既能解除孤獨，又能發現美好的未來。對知識的追求，使人理解人心，了解宇宙，掌握科學。愛和知識把人引向天堂般的境界，而對人類的同情之心又使人回到苦難深重的人間。作者認為這就是人生，值得為此再活一次的人生。這篇散文似乎信手拈來，但卻耐人尋味。充滿激情，充滿感慨，充滿智慧，情文并茂，邏輯性和感染力極強。
伯特蘭·羅素(Bertrand Russell,1872-1970)是英國聲譽卓著，影響深遠的哲學家、數學家、邏輯學家和散文家。他生于威爾士的特萊雷克，就讀于劍橋三一學院，在其漫長的一生中完成了40余部著作，涉及哲學、數學、倫理、社會、教育、歷史、宗教及政治等許多領域。他早年的成就主要在數學和邏輯學，中年關注倫理道德、教育、政治，激勵和啟發富有進取精神的人。在1921年曾來中國，在北京大學作過講座。他在1950年榮獲諾貝爾文學獎。在政治上，他反對侵略戰爭，主張和平，晚年參加反戰示威。主要著作有《數學原理》、《哲學大綱》、《教育與美好生活》、《羅素自傳》三卷本。
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 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.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flu. 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.
