What I had lived for (why am I Alive-Russell)

What I had lived for

by Bertrand Russell

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, has governed my life:the longing for love, the search for knowledge, a nd unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, with blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, re Aching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy-ecstasy so great that I would often has 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 look s over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I had sought it finally, because in the union of Love I had seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the H Eaven that saints and poets has imagined. This is the what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, the is What--at Last--i has found.
With equal passion I has 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 has 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 burden to their sons, and the whole world of Lon Eliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should is. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This have been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

President

The longing for love, the pursuit of knowledge, the unbearable compassion for human suffering, these three kinds of pure and overwhelmingly strong passion dominate my life. These three passions, like hurricanes, have blown me away and blown to the brink of despair in the depths of the abyss of misery.
I seek love, first because love brings ecstasy to me, it is so strong that I am often willing to sacrifice all the rest of my life for hours of pleasure. I seek love, and secondly it is because love can lift loneliness one-that is a trembling heart, on the edge of the world, overlooking the cold dead, unfathomable abyss. I seek love, and finally because in the Union of Love, I see the mysterious microcosm of the heavenly scene that the saints and the Poets Imagine. This is what I seek, though it seems too good for life, but in the end I get it.
I seek knowledge with the same passion, and I desire to know the soul of man. I am eager to know why the stars are shining, and I try to understand the power of Pythagoras, that numbers dominate the flow of things. I have achieved some achievements in this respect, but not many.
Love and knowledge, as much as possible, lead me to heaven, but compassion always brings me back to Earth. The cries of pain are often echoed in my heart, the starving children, the oppressed, the helpless old men who are seen as burdens by their children, and the whole world full of loneliness, poverty, and misery, a mockery of human life. I am eager to alleviate these misfortunes, but I can do nothing, and I have suffered for myself.
This is my life, I feel worth living for it. I'd be happy to live again if I had the chance.

What I had lived for (why am I Alive-Russell)