Bertrand Russell Biography

Author's name: Bertrand Russell

Three passions have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and an unbearable pity for the suffering of humanity. These three passions, like gigantic wings, have driven me forcefully here and there, uncontrollably, over a deep sea of ​​sorrow, reaching the very borders of despair. I sought love first because it brings ecstasy, ecstasy so great that more than once I would have sacrificed the remainder of life for a few hours of such pleasure. I sought it also because it offers relief from solitude, that terrible solitude in which one's trembling consciousness peers over the top of the world into the harsh, desolate, incomprehensible abyss. Finally, I sought it because in marriage for love I saw, in miniature, a mystical image, the prophetic image of the paradise imagined by saints and poets. With equal passion I sought knowledge. I wished to understand the inner workings of human beings. I wished to know why the stars shine. I tried to comprehend the efficacy of the Pythagorean theorem, according to which numbers govern the world. I achieved a little of this, but not much. Love and knowledge, as long as they are available, lift me to the heavens, but compassion always brings me back to earth. The echo of cries of pain resounds in my heart. Starving children, tortured victims of tyrants, helpless elderly who are a hateful burden to their children, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain mocks the fate of human life. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, for I too suffer.