We do not chooseto be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historicalepoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of ourupbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time orconditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we dochoose how we shall live courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably,with purpose or in drift. We decide what is important and what is trivial inlife. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuseto do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions,these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as wedecide and choose, so are our lives formed. Inthe end, forming our own destiny is whatambition is about. 我们无法选择出生，无法选择父母，无法选择出生的历史时期与国家，或是成长的周遭环境。
我们大多数人都无法选择死亡，无法选择死亡的时间或条件。但是在这些无法选择之中，我们的确可以选择自己的生活方式：是勇敢无畏还是胆小怯懦，是光明磊落还是厚颜无耻，是目标坚定还是随波逐流。我们决定生活中哪些至关重要，哪些微不足道。我们决定，用以显示我们自身重要性的，不是我们做了什么，就是我们拒绝做些什么。
但是不论世界对我们所做的选择和决定有多么漠不关心，这些选择和决定终究是我们自己做出的。我们决定，我们选择。而当我们决定和选择时，我们的生活便得以形成。最终构筑我们命运的就是抱负之所在。 ---------------------- What I Have Lived For 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 waywardcourse, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. I have soughtlove, first, because it brings ecstasy---ecstasy so great that I would oftenhave sacrificed all the rest of my life for a few hours for this joy. I have soughtit, next, because it relieves loneliness---that terrible loneliness in whichone shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the coldunfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union oflove I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaventhat saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it mightseem too good for human life, this is what---at last---I have found. With equalpassion 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 thePythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this,but not much, I have achieved. Love andknowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. Butalways it brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in myheart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old peoplea hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and painmake a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, butI cannot, and I too suffer. This has been mylife. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if thechance were offered me. 我为何而生 我的一生被三种简单却又无比强烈的激情所控制：对爱的渴望，对知识的探索和对人类苦难难以抑制的屿。
这些激情像狂风，把我恣情吹向四方，掠过苦痛的大海，迫使我濒临绝望的边缘。 我寻求爱，首先因为它使我心为之着迷，这种难以名状的美妙迷醉使我愿意用所有的余生去换取哪怕几个小时这样的幸福。我寻求爱，还因为它能缓解我心理上的孤独中，我感觉心灵的战栗，仿如站在世界的边缘而面前是冰冷，无底的死亡深渊。我寻求爱，因为在我所目睹的结合中，我仿佛看到了圣贤与诗人们所向往的天堂之景。
这就是我所寻找的，虽然对人的一生而言似乎有些遥不可及，但至少是我用尽一生所领悟到的。 我用同样的激情去寻求知识。我希望能理解人类的心灵，希望能够知道群星闪烁的缘由。我试图领悟毕达哥拉斯所景仰的“数即万物”的思想。我已经悟出了其中的一点点道理，尽管并不是很多。 爱和知识，用它们的力量把人引向天堂。但是同情却总把人又拽回到尘世中来。
痛苦的呼喊声回荡在我的内心。饥饿的孩子，受压迫的难民，贫穷和痛苦的世界，都是对人类所憧憬的美好生活的无情嘲弄。我渴望能够减少邪恶，但是我无能为力，我也难逃其折磨。 这就是我的一生。我已经找到它的价值。而且如果有机会，我很愿意能再活它一次。 ---------------------- We are alive;let us live. We have the ability to experience; let us experience. We have theability to learn; let us learn. The meaning of life can be grasped in a ...
