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 wayward course, over a depp ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I ahve sought love, first because it brings ecstasy-ecstasy so great that I would have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relives loneliness-that terrible loneliness in which shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what-at last-I have found.
With equal passion I ahve 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 the Pythagorean 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 towards the heavens. But always pity bought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a moclery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, 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.
Do you want to really feel great?
Then give your encouragement to someone else.
You'll find it impossible to be discouraged after putting
so much energy into encouraging another.
Do you wish to be wealthy?
Then find a way of adding wealth to the lives of others.
Do you wish to be loved?
Then give your love to another.
Would you like to be more respected?
Then show more respect for others.
Can a bright, shining light focus on itself?
Of course not.
Light has no meaning unless there is something to illuminate.
In the same way, you have plenty of energy and overwhelming abundance,
yet these only become evident, only become useful,
when they're radiated outward.
Send your energy outward, where it will truly do some good.
Shine your light on others and it will, in turn, make you glow.
Life will reward you precisely to the extent that you
express yourself, in your own unique way, to the world.
Give what you've got and you'll get whatever you desire.
May this day bring your dreams to reality,
peace all around you and happiness in everything you do.
Let us treat all with respect and honor.
