我為什麼而活著
三種樸素而強烈的感情控制了我的一生：對愛的渴望，對知識的追求以及對人類苦難的難以遏制的同情。這三種感情像颶風一樣把我卷到痛苦的深淵，忽東忽西，捉摸不
定，直至吹向絕望的邊緣。
我尋求愛。首先，是因為它給我帶來莫大的歡喜——這歡喜是如此之大，我寧願以餘下的生命來換取幾個小時這種快樂。第二，是因為愛可以使人從孤獨中解脫——人處在那可怕的孤獨境地就像是膽戰心驚地站在世界的邊緣眺望冰冷、深不可測而且毫無生氣的地獄。最後，是因為在愛的結合中我看到了聖徒和詩人們幻想的天堂的雛形。這就是我所尋求的，雖然這可能是人生難以得到的美好事物，但這就是我最終所找到的東西。
我以同樣的激情來追求知識。我想了解人的內心，我想知道星星為什麼會發光，而且我也努力理解畢達哥拉斯哲學使數字支配變化的能力。在探索知識方面我只取得了一點成績，但不是很多。
愛和知識儘可能把我引向天堂，但同情總讓我回到人間。痛苦的號叫在我心裡迴蕩。我希望能減少生活中的苦難，但我沒有能力，我自己也在受難。
這就是我的一生。我認為我的一生很有意義。如果上天再給我一次重新活過的機會，我會欣然接受。
i have lived for
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 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. 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 to me.