1、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 （四处） , in a wayward course over a deep ocean of anguish, reach
2、ing to the very verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy （欣喜若狂） ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed （牺牲） all the rest of my life for a few hours for this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves lonelinessthat terrible loneliness in which one shi
3、vering consciousness looks over the rim （边缘） of the world into the cold unfathomable （不可测量的） lifeless abyss （悬崖）. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature （缩影）, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I
4、sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is whatat lastI 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 shineA little of this, but not much, I have achieved. Love and knowledge, so far a
5、s they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate（回响） in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured（折磨） 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.
