Two passions, simple but 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 thither1 , in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish3, reaching to the very verge of despair.
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 apprehend7 the Pythagorean8 power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate9 in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.