Life, however fleeting, is governed by different desires. Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, govern 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 back and forth, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I seek love, first, because it brings ecstasy- ecstasy so great that I would sacrifice all the rest of my life for a few hours of this joy. I seek it, because it relieves loneliness-that terrible loneliness in which one looks over the edge of the world into a cold, lifeless abyss. I seek it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a small way, the image of heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I see, and though it may seem too good for human life, I will continue to pursue it.
With equal passion, I seek knowledge. I wish to understand the hearts of men. I wish to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Phytagorean power by which mathematics is superior to chance. 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 in my heart. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. I have seen 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.
--BETRAND RUSSELLThis expository is sp beautifully written. :) Good luck for angmoh paper!
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