“爱首先不是同一个特定的人的关系； 它是一种态度，一种性格倾向。这种态度、性格倾向决定了一个人同整个世界的关系，而不是同一个 “爱的对象”的关系。”
Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an orientation of character which determines the relatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not toward one “object” of love.
“正因为人们不是把爱看作是一种积极的行动，灵魂的一种力量， 所以他们认为只要找到爱的正确对象就行了。”
Because one does not see that love is an activity, a power of the soul, one believes that all that is necessary to find is the right object— and that everything goes by itself afterward.
爱的基本形式就是博爱，它是所有其他类型的爱的基础。意思是说，它包含了所有的爱都应有的责任感、关心、尊重和理解他人，愿意促进他人的生活。这就是《圣经》上所说的那种爱：爱人如己。
The most fundamental kind of love, which underlies all types of love, is brotherly love. By this I mean the sense of responsibility, care, respect, knowledge of any other human being, the wish to further his life. This is the kind of love the Bible speaks of when it says: love thy neighbor as thyself.
同人所共有的人性本质的同一性相比，人与人之间在才能、智力和知识上的差别完全可以忽略不计。
The differences in talents, intelligence, knowledge are negligible in comparison with the identity of the human core common to all men.
如果我对人的感知停留在一个人的表面，那我看到的主要我们之间的差异。这些差异会将我们分开。如果我洞察到他的内心，我就会体会到我们的同一性，我们的手足情谊。
If I perceive in another person mainly the surface, I perceive mainly the differences, that which separates us. If I penetrate to the core, I perceive our identity, the fact of our brotherhood.
西蒙威尔曾经很优美地表述过这一点：“同样的话（例如一个男人对他的妻子说：‘ 我爱你’ ）根据说这句话的方式， 既可以说是平凡无奇，也可以说是非同寻常。 说话的方式取决于一个人内在品质的深度； 这些话完全是从内心那里自然流溢出来的，不带有任何为了什么目的的意识。 通过一种不可思议的默契，这些话也到达了听者内心同一深处。 这样，听者就能分辨如果他有分辨的能力的话，这些话的价值是什么。 ”
Or as Simone Weil expressed it so beautifully: “The same words [e.g., a man says to his wife, “I love you”] can be commonplace or extraordinary according to the manner in which they are spoken. And this manner depends on the depth of the region in a man’s being from which they proceed without the will being able to do anything. And by a marvelous agreement they reach the same region in him who hears them. Thus the hearer can discern, if he has any power of discernment, what is the value of the words?”
只有当我爱那些并不能服务于我的个人目的的人的时候，爱才开始显现。
Only in the love of those who do not serve a purpose, love begins to unfold.
上帝所允之地（土地始终是母亲的象征）被描述为“流着奶和蜜”。奶象征母爱的第一个方面： 对生命的照顾和肯定。 蜜则象征生活的甜美，对生活的爱和活着的幸福。
The promised land (land is always a mother symbol) is described as “flowing with milk and honey.” Milk is the symbol of the first aspect of love, that of care and affirmation. Honey symbolizes the sweetness of life, the love for it and the happiness in being alive.
母爱的态度部分地是源于同动物一样的本能。但是，不管这种本能因素所占的分量有多大，也还有产生这种母亲特殊的人类心理因素。
It seems that this attitude of love is partly rooted in an instinctive equipment to be found in animals as well as in the human female. But, whatever the weight of this instinctive factor may be, there are also specifically human psychological factors which are responsible for this type of motherly love.
母亲对孩子的爱和痴迷可能是对自恋的一种满足。在母亲对权力或占有的愿望中，我们发现了另外一个动机。一个无助的、完全服从于母亲的意志的孩子，无疑是一个渴望支配和占有的女人满足其欲望的自然对象。
Inasmuch as the infant is still felt to be a part of herself, her love and infatuation may be a satisfaction of her narcissism. Another motivation may be found in a mother’s wish for power, or possession. The child, being helpless and completely subject to her will, is a natural object of satisfaction for a domineering and possessive woman.
“超越性” 的需要。need for transcendence.
最自然最容易的方法就是母亲对自己创造物的照顾和爱。在她的孩子身上，母亲超越了自我，她对孩子的爱能给她的生活以意义（男人不能通过生育孩子来满足超越的需要，所以他只能通过用创造人造物以及创造思想来超越自己）。
the most natural and also the easiest one to achieve is the mother’s care and love for her creation. She transcends herself in the infant; her love for it gives her life meaning and significance. (In the very inability of the male to satisfy his need for transcendence by bearing children lies his urge to transcend himself by the creation of man-made things and of ideas.)
母爱的真正本质在于照顾孩子的成长，这也就意味着想让孩子离开自己。
The very essence of motherly love is to care for the child’s growth, and that means to want the child’s separation from herself.
母爱不仅应该容忍这一分离，而且还应该希望并支持这一分离。就是在这一阶段，母爱才成为一项艰巨的任务，母爱要求无私，贡献一切，除了被爱者的幸福以外别无所求。
The mother must not only tolerate, she must wish and support the child’s separation. It is only at this stage that motherly love becomes such a difficult task, that it requires unselfishness, the ability to give everything and to want nothing but the happiness of the loved one.
兄弟之爱是同等者之间的爱；母爱是对需要帮助的人的爱。
Brotherly love is love among equals; motherly love is love for the helpless.
性爱是对同他人完全融合的渴望。按其本性而言，性爱是排他性，无法普遍的；性爱也可能是所有爱中最能迷惑人的一种。
In contrast to both types of love are erotic love; it is the craving for complete fusion, for union with one other person.It is by its very nature exclusive and not universal; it is also perhaps the most deceptive form of love there is.
首先，人们常常会把性爱同电光火闪的“坠入” 情网的经历混为一谈，在这种情况下，两个陌生人之间所有的隔阂都突然崩塌了。正像上面已经指出的那样，按其本质这种突如其发的亲密体验注定是要短命的。
First of all, it is often confused with the explosive experience of “falling” in love, the sudden collapse of the barriers which existed until that moment between two strangers.But, as was pointed out before, this experience of sudden intimacy is by its very nature short-lived.
既然他们所体验到孤独仅仅是肉体上的孤独，因而肉体的结合对他们来说也就意味着对孤独的克服。
Since they experience the separateness of the other person primarily as physical separateness, physical union means overcoming separateness.
此外，对许多人来说还有一系列别的因素标志着孤独的克服。讲述自己的个人生活，描绘自己的希望和焦虑，展示自己幼稚、孩童般天真的一面，以及建立面对世界的共同兴趣，所有这些方面可以算作克服人之孤独的途径。甚至表露自己的愤怒和仇恨，无所顾忌地交心也都被看作是亲密。
Beyond that, there are other factors which to many people denote the overcoming of separateness. To speak of one’s own personal life, one’s hopes and anxieties, to show oneself with one’s childlike or childish aspects, to establish a common interesttothe world—all this is taken as overcoming separateness.
性欲的目标在于结合，而绝不仅仅指肉体的欲望，以及为了释放折磨人的压力。但是，性欲确实可以由对孤独的焦虑，由征服或被征服的愿望，由空虚，由伤害甚至破坏的愿望所激发正如它也可以为爱所激发那样。看起来，性欲可以同每一种强烈的情感混合在一起，也可以为每一种强烈的情感所激发，爱只不过是其中之一罢了。
Sexual desire aims at fusion—and is by no means only a physical appetite, the relief of a painful tension. But sexual desire can be stimulated by the anxiety of loneliness, by the wish to conquer or be conquered, by vanity, by the wish to hurt and even to destroy, as much as it can be stimulated by love. It seems that sexual desire can easily blend with and be stimulated by any strong emotion, of which love is only one.
爱毫无疑问会激发性结合的愿望；在爱激发下，这种肉体关系就不会带有贪欲，就不会带有征服或被征服的愿望，而是跟柔情混合在一起了。如果肉体结合的欲望不是被爱激发的，如果性爱不同时也是兄弟之爱，那么这种肉体的结合只会是刹那的狂欢。
Love can inspire the wish for sexual union; in this case the physical relationship is lacking in greediness, in a wish to conquer or to be conquered, but is blended with tenderness. If the desire for physical union is not stimulated by love, if erotic love is not also brotherly love, it never leads to union in more than an orgiastic, transitory sense.
柔情绝不是如弗洛伊德所说是性本能的升华，而是兄弟之爱的直接后果；柔情既表现在爱的肉体形式中，也表现在爱的非肉体形式中。
Tenderness is by no means, as Freud believed, a sublimation of the sexual instinct; it is the direct outcome of brotherly love, and exists in physical as well as in non-physical forms of love.
性爱具有一种兄弟之爱和母爱都不具备的排他性、独占性。
In erotic love there is an exclusiveness which is lacking in brotherly love and motherly love.
性爱的这种排他性经常被错误地解释为是一种占有性依赖。
Frequently the exclusiveness of erotic love is misinterpreted as meaning possessive attachment.
性爱是具有排他性的，但同时也是通过爱一个人，进而爱全人类，爱一切活着的生命。
Erotic love is exclusive, but it loves in the other person all of mankind, all that is alive.
性爱，如果性爱可称为爱的话，需要一个先决条件。那就是我从我存在的本质出发去爱，并且去体验对方存在的本质。从其本质来说，人都是一样的。我们都既是整体的一部分又是一个整体。如果情形是这样的话，实际上爱谁都没什么区别。
Erotic love, if it is love, has one premise. That I love from the essence of my being—and experience the other person in the essence of his or her being. In essence, all human beings are identical. We are all part of One; we are One. This being so, it should not make any difference whom we love.
爱从本质上说应该是一种意志的行为，是对将自己的一生完全托付给对方的决定。在当代西方文化中，这种观点显然被视为完全错误。人们认为爱情是一个人对不可抗拒情感所突然虏获的自发反应。
Love should be essentially an act of will, of decision to commit my life completely to that of one other person.In contemporary Western culture this idea appears altogether false. Love is supposed to be the outcome of a spontaneous, emotional reaction, of suddenly being gripped by an irresistible feeling.
人们忽略了性爱中的一个重要因素：意志。爱一个人不仅是一种强烈的感情，而且也是一项决定，一桩判断，一个承诺。如果爱情仅仅是一种感情，那么承诺相爱一辈子就没有基础。一种感情来了，又会离去。如果我的爱不包含判断和决定的话，我又何以能肯定爱情的绵绵无期呢？
One neglects to see an important factor in erotic love, that of will. To love somebody is not just a strong feeling—it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision?
爱只是意志行为和承诺行为，故而，爱的双方是什么人并不重要。这忽视了人的本质与性爱错综复杂的性质。
Love is exclusively an act of will and commitment, and that therefore fundamentally it does not matter who the two persons are.This view seems to neglect the paradoxical character of human nature and of erotic love.
一种观点认为性爱完全是两个人之间的吸引，是两个特定的人之间独一无二的关系；另一种观点认为性爱只是意志的行为。这两种观点都是正确的；或者更适宜的说法是，二者都不正确。
Both views then, that of erotic love as completely individual attraction, unique between two specific persons, as well as the other view that erotic love is nothing but an act of will, are true—or, as it may be put more aptly, the truth is neither this nor that.
再没有比我们下面所要引用的梅斯特艾克哈特关于这一主题所作的概括更为精辟的话了，他说：“你若爱你自己，你就会爱所有的人如同爱你自己。你若对一个人的爱少于爱你自己，那你就不能真正地成功地爱你自己。如果你能同样地爱所有的人，包括你自己，那么你就能把他们当作一个人来爱，既是上帝也是人。那么你就是一个伟大的人，一个正直的人，一个同等爱自己，以及所有其他人的人。”
These ideas on self-love cannot be summarized better than I by quoting Meister Eckhart on this topic: “If you love your-1 self, you love everybody else as you do yourself. As long as I. you love another person less than you love yourself, you will not really succeed in loving yourself, but if you love all alike, I including yourself, you will love them as one person and that I person is both God and man. Thus he is a great and righteous | person who, loving himself, loves all others equally.”
