ERTRAND B RUSSELL
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the pursuit of knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These three passions, like great winds, have led me here and there, changing a route, over a deep ocean of anguish, to the edge of despair. I sought love, first, because it leads to ecstasy an ecstasy so great that often have sacrificed the rest of my life for a few hours of this joy. I've searched, secondly, because it relieves loneliness that terrible loneliness in which a trembling conscience overlooking the edge of the world to scan the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I've searched, finally, because in the union of love I have seen in a mystic miniature, the early vision of heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This was what I wanted, and, although it might seem too good for this life, this is what-at last I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I wanted to understand the hearts of men. I want to know why the stars shine. And I've tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which the number dominates the flow. Some of this I have achieved, but not much.
Love and knowledge, to the extent that both were possible, I am transported to heaven. But always pity made me return to the land. It resonates in my heart the echoes of cries of pain. Starving children, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people, hateful burden for their children, and a whole world of loneliness, poverty and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I ardently desire to alleviate the evil, but I can not, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I've found worth living, and gladly live it again if I am offered the opportunity.
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