经典优美英语散文精选
What I Have Lived for我为何而生
- By Bertrand Russell伯特兰·罗素
《我为何而生》引自《伯特兰·罗素自传》。它既是作者心灵的抒发，也是生命体验的总结。作者以深刻的感悟和敏锐的目光，分析了人生中的三种激情，即对爱的渴望，对知识的追求和对人类苦难的同情。对爱的渴望，使人欣喜若狂，既能解除孤独，又能发现美好的未来。对知识的追求，使人理解人心，了解宇宙，掌握科学。爱和知识把人引向天堂般的境界，而对人类的同情之心又使人回到苦难深重的人间。作者认为这就是人生，值得为此再活一次的人生。这篇散文似乎信手拈来，但却耐人寻味。充满激情，充满感慨，充满智慧，情文并茂，逻辑性和感染力极强。
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 higher and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the verge of despair.
三种简单但是无比强烈的感情主导着我的人生：对爱的渴望、对知识的寻求和对人类苦难的深切同情。这些感情如同飓风一样没有方向地将我吹得越来越高、越来越远，越过痛苦的海洋到达绝望的边缘。
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy-ecstasy so great that I would 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 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 - at last - I have found.
我寻找爱，因为爱让我着迷——这种沉迷如此美好，我宁愿放弃生命中的一切只为换来片刻的对爱的沉迷。我寻找爱，因为爱会减轻孤独——在可怕的孤独中，颤抖的灵魂透过世界的边际看到的是冰冷的、深不可测的、没有生命的深渊。我寻找爱，因为在爱的结合中，我看到了一个神秘的具体而微小的世界，这是圣人与诗人想象中的天堂景象的预示。这是我所寻求的，并且我最终发现，它对于人类来说是再美好不过的东西了。
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 l have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds away above the flux. A little of this, but, not much, I have achieved.
以同样的热情，我寻求知识。我曾想要理解人的心灵；我曾想知道为什么星星如此闪亮。我曾试图理解毕达哥拉斯的力量，这种力量使数字凌驾于万物之上。在这些方面我获取了一些知识，但不是很多。
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heaven. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberated in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, 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. 爱和知识，只要可能实现，就会引领我走向天堂。但是同情常常将我带回现实。
痛苦的哭喊回荡在我的心中。饥饿的孩子，被剥削者压迫的人民、贫穷和痛苦，这些都在嘲讽人类的生活的本来面目。我渴望减轻邪恶，但是我无法做到，我亦在遭受痛苦。
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and I would gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me.
这就是我的人生。我认为它值得拥有并且如果可能，我愿意重新再来一次。
词汇魅力
1.overwhelmingly adv.压倒性地，不可抵抗地
2.thither adj.对岸的，那边的adv.到那处，向那方
3.wayward adj.任性的，不定的，刚愎的
4.anguish n.苦闷，痛苦 v.（使）极苦闷，（使）极痛苦
5.shivering vi.& n.战栗，发抖
6.consciousness n.意识；觉悟；知觉
7.unfathomable adj.深不可测的
8.mystic adj.神秘的，神秘主义者的 n.神秘主义者
9.miniature adj.小型的，小规模的 n.缩图，小画像，小模型
10.apprehend v.理解，忧虑，逮捕，拘押
11.flux n.流量，变迁，不断地变化
12.reverberate v.回响，反响，反射
13.mockery n.嘲弄，笑柄，蔑视
14.alleviate vt.减轻，缓解，缓和