人为什么活着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, haveblown me hither and thither,in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
有三种单纯然而无比强烈的感情左右了我的一生：对爱的渴望，对知识的探索和对人类苦难不可遏制的同情。这些感情如阵阵飓风，无处不在、反复无常地吹拂着我，吹过深重的苦海，直抵绝望的边缘。
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 relievesloneliness--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 iswhat I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.
我寻找爱，首先是因为它使人心醉神迷，这种陶醉是如此的美妙，使我愿意牺牲所有的余生去换取几小时爱的喜悦。我寻找爱，因为爱情可以摆脱孤寂——身历那种可怕孤寂的人战栗的意识有时会由世界的边缘看到冰冷、无底、死寂的深渊。最后，我寻找爱，还因为在爱的交融中，我看到了古今圣贤以及诗人们所梦想的天堂的缩影，这正是我所追寻的人生境界。虽然它对一般的人类生活也许太美好，但这正是我透过爱情所得到的最终发现。
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, Ihave achieved.
我曾以同样的感情追求知识，我渴望去了解人类的心灵，也渴望知道群星为何闪烁。我试图领悟毕达哥拉斯所景仰的数字力量，它支配着此消彼涨。仅在不大的一定程度上，我达到了此目的。
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 amockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I can't, and I too suffer.
爱情与知识的可及领域，总是引领我到天堂的境界，可对人类苦难的同情却经常把我带回现实世界。那些痛苦的呼唤经常在我内心深处激起回响，饥饿中的孩子，被压迫被折磨着，给子女造成重担的孤苦无依的老人，以及全球无情的孤独、贫穷和痛苦的存在，是对人类生活理想的无视和讽刺。我常常希望能尽自己的微薄之力去减轻这不必要的痛苦，但我发现我完全失败了，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 itagain if the chance were offered me.
这就是我的一生，我发现它值得一过。如果有谁再给我一次生活的机会，我将欣然接受这难得的赐予。