伯兰特·罗素（1872年5月18日－1970年2月2日）是二十世纪最有影响力的哲学家、数学家和逻辑学家之一，同时也是活跃的政治活动家，并致力于哲学的大众化、普及化。无数人将罗素视为这个时代的先知，而与此同时罗素的许多政治立场却又是十分有争议性的。1950年，罗素获得诺贝尔文学奖。
What I Have Lived For我为什么而活--- The Prologue to Bertrand Russell's Autobiography 伯兰特·罗素自传序言
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 hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
三种单纯而强烈的感情支配了我的一生：对爱情的渴望，对知识的追求，对人类苦难不可遏制的同情。这些感情如阵阵巨风，吹拂我动荡不定的生涯，吹过那深沉痛苦的海洋，直抵绝望的边缘。
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often 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 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.
我寻求爱情，是因为它带来狂喜,它是如此令人心醉神迷，我常常会为了这种短暂的欢乐而牺牲余生。我寻求爱情，是因为它能摆脱孤寂,身临这种难耐的孤寂。一个人战栗的目光会瞥过尘世的边缘，直透那冰冷而不可测的无生命的深渊。我寻求爱情，还因为在爱的结合中，我看到了古今圣贤和诗人在梦想中描绘的天堂的神秘缩影。这正是我追求的境界，虽然它对于人类的生活可能显得过分美妙了，但它却是我最终在爱情中发现的东西。
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 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.
我以同样的激情追求知识。我想理解人类的心。我想知道星星为什么闪耀。我试图悟出毕达哥拉斯的力量，这力量使得数成为变动不居的世界的本质。在这方面我有所得，但所获并不很多。
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 loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
爱情和知识，在其最大的可能中，将我引升到天堂。但悲悯之心总是使我回到现实的大地。那些痛苦的呼号在我心中回荡。忍饥挨饿的小孩，被压迫者欺凌的不幸者，被子女视为可厌负担的孤苦无助的老人，以及这整个孤寂、贫穷和痛苦的世界，对于人类生活的理想，不啻是一种嘲讽。我切盼减缓苦难，但我无能为力，同时亦身受其害。
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
这就是我的一生，我没有白活。如果有谁再给我一次生活的机会，我将欣然接受这难得的赐予。