人的一生是黑暗中漫长的旅途，被看不见的敌人围绕，被痛苦和疲惫折磨。我们迈向一个罕有人至的终点，在那儿无人可长久逗留。当我们行进时，同伴一个接一个地从我们身边消失，被无可抗拒的死亡悄无声息的带离。旅途中，只有极短促的时刻，我们能为身边的人提供帮助，而在这短促的时刻，他们的幸福或苦难已就此决定。愿我们能在他们的道路上撒落几缕阳光，用同情的膏药缓解他们的悲伤，以不倦的友善使他们感到纯粹的快乐。在他们垂头丧气时我们为其呐喊鼓劲，在绝望迷惘时我们可助其信念支撑。让我们不要用苛刻的标尺去评估他们的价值与不足，而只考虑他们的需要 —— 那些悲伤，艰难，乃或无知导致了他们生命的不幸。让我们记住，在这片漆黑的跋涉中，他们同是备受折磨的伙伴，和我们同样站在这出人生悲剧的舞台。当他们生命划上休止符，他们的善与恶将在不朽的时光中成为永恒，他们的失落和苦痛并非因我们而起——但不论何时何地，只要神启之光在他们心头点亮，我们可随时准备给予他们鼓励，表达感同身受的同情，助燃其心头勇敢的火焰。 ——《自由之人的信仰》伯特兰·罗素 The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in grudging scales their merits and demerits, but let us think only of their need--of the sorrows, the difficulties, perhaps the blindnesses, that make the misery of their lives; let us remember that they are fellow-sufferers in the same darkness, actors in the same tragedy as ourselves. And so, when their day is over, when their good and their evil have become eternal by the immortality of the past, be it ours to feel that, where they suffered, where they failed, no deed of ours was the cause; but wherever a spark of the divine fire kindled in their hearts, we were ready with encouragement, with sympathy, with brave words in which high courage glowed. —— “A free man's worship” by Bertrand Russell 又：这篇文章写得意气风发，看到篇末这段几近泪下。看时没注意写作年份，只觉画风突变，哲学观对比我熟悉的晚年的他也显得形而上，回头一查才知道是30岁时写得，难怪:) 而一直不变的，依然是他"对人类苦难不可遏制的同情"吧(The unberable pity for the suffering of Mankind")。越往后他的写作越面向普通大众，越发诚恳和平易近人，大概也是出于文中所说Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path.
