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 others. 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. i will keep trying.
this has been my life; i find it worth living.
