MY LIFE’S PASSIONS

 Three passions have governed my life:-

THE LONGING OF LOVE

THE SEARCH FOR KNOWLEDGE 

THE UNBEARABLE PITY HUMAN SUFFERING.

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.

In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision 

Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.

I have wished to understand the hearts of people.

I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,

But always pity brought me back to earth;

Cries of pain reverberated in my heart 

Of children in famine, of victims tortured 

And of old people left helpless.

I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,

And I too suffer .

This has been my life ; I found it worth living.

A POEM BY BERTRAND RUSSELL