原文：

Three passions,simple but overwhelmingly strong,have governed my life — the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the 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,reacing 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 living 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 wishd 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 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 a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

译文：

有三种朴实却异常强烈的激情左右着我的人生：渴望爱情、寻求知识和对受苦人的怜悯。这三种激情尤如飓风肆意地吹着我,从无边的苦海吹向绝境。

我寻找爱，因为爱使人陶醉。我常常宁愿用我全部的余生来换取几个小时这样的欣喜。我寻找爱，因为爱使我解除了孤寂，解除了一个颤抖的灵魂从人世间到冷漠无底的深渊所经历的孤寂。我寻找爱，因为我在爱的缩影中看到了圣人和诗人眼里天堂的景象。这就是以往我寻找的，虽然对于人生来说似乎过于美好，但我终于找到了。

以同样的激情，我寻求知识。我渴望理解人类的心灵。我想知道群星为何闪烁。我试图领悟毕达哥拉斯的数的魔力，它支配着数的和谐。我已多少达到了此目的。

爱和知识总是通往天堂。但是怜悯总把我带回尘世。痛苦喊叫的回声在我心中回荡。挨饿的孩子，遭摧残的受害者，被子女视为累赘的无助老人，以及这个充满孤独、贫穷和痛苦的世界，是对应有人生的一种嘲弄。我渴望减轻这种灾难，但是我无能为力，我也在受苦。