(no subject)

[fightthemind]

Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
and unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind.
Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
in a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of people.
I have wished to know why the stars shine.
Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
but always pity brought me back to earth;
cries of pain reverberated in my heart
of children in famine, of victims tortured
and of old people left helpless.

This has been my life; I found it worth living.
-- Bertrand Russell

I love the greatness of quotes.