Three passions have governed my life:

The longings for love, the search for knowledge,

And unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

 

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.

I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,

And I too suffer.

 

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

Oooh, check us out! Classy.

I give you now Professor Twist,

A conscientious scientist,

Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"

And sent him off to distant jungles.

Camped on a tropic riverside,

One day he missed his loving bride.

She had, the guide informed him later,

Been eaten by an alligator.

Professor Twist could not but smile.

"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."

 

The Purist - Ogden Nash