翻译精粹(1)

1. Age

The same space seems shorter as we grow older„ in youth we may have an absolutely new experience, subjective or objective, every hour of the day. Apprehension is vivid, retentiveness strong, and our recollections of that time, like those of a time spent in rapid and interesting travel, are of long-drawn out. But as each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine which we hardly note at all, the days and the week smooth themselves out in recollection to contentless units, and years grow hollow and collapse.

William James (1842—1910): Principles of Psychology

参考译文： 年岁

年纪愈大，就愈感觉时间短促„„年轻时，我们在每天的每个时刻里，都可能有全新的主观或客观经验。那时领悟力佳，记忆力好，那段时期的回忆就像一场快脚步的有趣旅游，内容杂乱而丰富，时间也被拉长。但随着岁月一年一年的过去，这种经验变成了一种无意识的例行生活，我们一点也不再留心它们。时间一天天一周周地流逝，没有在记忆里留下些什么，一年也就比一年变得更加空洞虚掷。

美国哲学家及心理学家威廉·詹姆斯：《心理学原理》

2. Alienation

By alienation is meant a mode of experience in which the person experiences himself as an alien. He has become, one might say, estranged from himself. He does not experience himself as the center of his world, as the creator of his own acts—but his acts and their consequences have become his masters, whom he obeys, or whom he may even worship. The alienated person is out of touch with himself as he is out of touch with other person. He, like the others, is experienced as things are

experienced; with the senses and with common sense, but at the same time without being related to oneself and to the world outside positively.

Erich Fromm (1900—1980)：The Sane Society 参考译文： 疏离

疏离，指的是人在体验自己时，把自己视为外人的一种体验模式。有人说，这是自己疏远了自己。这种人不觉得自己是个人世界的中心，不认为自己的行为是自己所做的，相反地，行为和行为的后果才是他的主宰，他必须服从甚至崇拜。疏离的人疏远自己，就好像是他在疏远别人一样。他就像其他人，别人对他的感受方式和人们对事物的感受方式一样；他用感官和常识来体验，却无法同时与自己或外在世界产生明确的关联。

德国精神分析学家及社会哲学家弗罗姆：《健全的社会》 3. American Dream

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dram. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed：“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by color of their skin but by content of their character. I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and

nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, through places will be made plains, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

Martin Luther King (1929—1968)：I Have a Dream 参考译文： 美国梦

朋友们，我今天要对你们说，尽管眼前横阻着困难和挫折，但我仍然有一个梦想。这是一个深植于 “美国梦”梦想。

我有一个梦想：将来有一天，这个国家会站起来，实践其信条的真谛：“我们认为这些真理是不言而喻的:人人生而平等。”

我有一个梦想：将来有一天，在乔治亚周的红土山丘上，昔日奴隶的孩子和昔日奴隶主的孩子，能够情同手足地同坐一堂。

我有一个梦想：将来有一天，甚至在密西西比州——备受不公平与压迫所熬煎地州郡，能够改造成一片自有又公平的绿洲。

我有一个梦想：将来有一天，我的四个孩子所住的国家，是以品性而非肤色来评判人的。我今天有这么一个梦想!

我有一个梦想：阿拉巴马州州长口口声声说干预和废除，将来有一天，这个州能够变成这种情况：黑人小男孩和小女孩，能够和白人小男孩及小女孩携手同行，如同兄弟姐妹。我今天有这么一个梦想!

我有一个梦想：将来有一天，每个山谷都能被填平，每座山岳丘陵都能被铲平，崎岖之处变为平原，弯处变直，圣光披露，众生一同目睹。

这就是我们的希望。这就是我重返南方所抱持的信念。有了这个信念，我们就能够在绝望之山挖掘出一块希望之石。有了这个信念，我们就可以把国家的嘈杂不谐之音变成一首歌颂手足之情的美妙交响曲。有了这个信念，我们就能够一道工作，一同祈祷，共同奋斗，一起入狱，并肩捍卫自由，明天我们总有一天终会自由。

美国黑人民权领袖马丁·路德·金：《我有一个梦想》 4. The Battle of Waterloo

All that day, from morning until past sunset, the cannon never ceased to roar. It was dark when the cannonading stopped all of a sudden.

All of us have read of what occurred during that interval. The tale is in every Englishman’s mouth; and you and I, who were children when the great battle was won and lost, are never tired of hearing and recounting the history of that famous action. Its remembrance rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those brave men who lost the day. They pant for an opportunity of revenging that humiliation; and if a contest, ending in a victory on their part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving its cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so-called glory and shame, and to the alternations of successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two

high-spirited nations might engage. Centuries hence, we Frenchmen and Englishmen might be boasting and killing each other still, carrying out bravely the Devil’s code of honor.

William Makepeace Thackeray(1811—1863)：Vanity Fair

参考译文： 滑铁卢之战

那天从早晨到日落，炮声隆隆，没有停过。到了天黑之后，炮轰才突然停止。 我们都知道当时发生了什么事。每个英国人都讲着这个故事。大战决定胜负的时候，你我都还是小孩子，我们听了又听，讲了又讲，对这场著名的战役一点也不会感到厌倦。那些当天战败的百万勇敢同胞，他们想起这件事时仍是忿忿不平，巴不得有机会雪耻。如果战后的胜利站在他们那边，他们成了得意的一方，

把可怕的仇恨和愤怒留给我们，两个不甘示弱的国家就会没完没了地斗下去，光荣与耻辱，成功与失败，互相消长，没有终止。数百年后，我们法国人和英国人可能还在互相吹嘘和残杀，勇敢地维护魔鬼的“荣誉”法典。

英国小说家萨克雷：《名利场》 5. Beauty

The ancients called beauty the flowering of virtue. Who can analyze the nameless charm which glances from one and another face and form? We are touched with emotions of tenderness and complacency, but we cannot find whereat this dainty emotion, this wandering gleam, points. It is destroyed for the imagination by any attempt to refer it to organization. Nor does it point to any relations of friendship or love known and described in society, but, as it seems to me, to a quite other and unattainable sphere, to relations of transcendent delicacy and sweetness, to what roses and violets hint and foreshow. We cannot approach beauty. Its nature is like opaline doves’-neck luster, hovering and evanescent.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882): Essays 参考译文： 美

古人说，“美”是品德之花。瞥视它的容貌样子，谁能说明那种难以言喻的魅力呢？我们因温和满足之情而动容，但我们无法得知这种恍惚闪光般的雅兴究竟指向何方。如果想把美整理出个条理，就会破坏了美的想象。美也不在表现社会所说的友谊或爱情的关系，在我看来，美所呈现的是一个迥然不同且无法企及的领域，指出一种超越性的感觉和甜蜜的关系，说明玫瑰和紫罗兰所暗示或预示的是什么。我们无法接近美。美的本质犹如鸽子颈项上的乳白光泽，飘忽即逝。

美国散文家、哲学家及诗人爱默生：《文集》 6. The Beloved

Now, the beloved can also be of any description. The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great grandfather and still love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two decades past. The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous, greasy-handed, and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else—but that does not affect the evolution of his love one whit. A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.

It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The

beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.

Carson McCullers (1917—1967)：The Ballad of the Sad Cafe 参考译文： 被爱者

“被爱”的人如今有各种样子。异国异域的人容易刺激恋情的发生。一个年老心智衰退的好爷爷，可能仍然爱着二十年前某个午后在齐豪街上所看到的一个陌生女孩。传教士可能爱上放荡女。被爱的这个人可能不忠、油头粉面、恶习难改。对此，爱他的人可能也和旁人一样心知肚明，可是却一点也不会影响爱情的发展。一个最平凡的人，可能成为美如沼泽毒百合的炽热爱情的对象。一个好人，可能让凶暴又品质恶劣的人对其产生爱恋；一个语无伦次的疯子，可能让某人的灵魂产生温柔朴素的田园情调。因此，任何爱情的价值或品质，都取决于爱者本人。

正因为如此，我们大多数人宁愿“爱人”而不是“被爱”。几乎人人都想成为爱别人的人。粗略地说来，很奇怪的是，很多人竟无法承受被爱的状态。被爱者有很明白的理由对爱者又怕又恨，因为爱者始终设法想把被爱者看得一清二楚。爱者渴望与被爱者有一些关系，即使这样做只会让自己痛苦。

美国女作家卡森·麦卡勒斯：《伤心咖啡馆的民谣》 7. Our Bias

The hour-glass whispers to the lion’s paw,

The clock-towers tell the gardens day and night, How many errors Time has patience for, How wrong they are in being always right.

Yet Time, however loud its chimes or deep, However fast its falling torrent flows, Has never put the lion off his leap Nor shaken the assurance of the rose.

For they, it seems, care only for success;

While we choose words according to their sound And judge a problem by its awkwardness; And Time with us was always popular.

When have we not preferred some going round To going straight to where we are？

Wystan Hush Auden (1907—1973) 参考译文： 我们的偏见

沙漏对着狮爪低语， 钟楼日夜倾诉花园:

时间容忍多少错误， 说它常存多么谬误。

不管沙漏流得多快， 声音多么洪亮深沉， 它也不能阻挡狮跃， 或动摇玫瑰的自信。 因它们只想着成功； 我们凭字音选字辞， 看粗劣来判断问题； 我们爱与时间相伴。 我们不都爱兜圈子 而非直达现况的吗？

英国诗人、剧作家及批评家奥登

8．Birth

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;

The soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar;

Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

William Wordsworth (1770—1850)：Ode: Intimations of Immortality 参考译文： 诞生

出生犹如入睡与遗忘； 伴同我们升起的灵魂， 这远方来的生命之星， 已经沉落在别的地方； 不是在全然的疏漏中， 不是在全然的裸露中， 而是在蔓生的云辉里 我们来自宇宙这家乡： 襁褓时天堂就在身旁！

英国诗人威廉·华兹华斯：《不朽的征兆》 9．Childhood

Childhood is less clear to me than to many people: when it ended I turned my face away from it for no reason that I know about, certainly without the usual reason of unhappy memories. For many years that worried

me, but then I discovered that the tales of former children are seldom to be trusted. Some people supply too many past victories or pleasures with which to comfort themselves, and other people cling to pains, real and imagined, to excuse what they have become.

I think I have always know about my memory. I know when it is to be trusted and when some dream or fantasy entered on the life, and the dream, the need of dream, led to distortion of what happened. And so I knew early that the rampage angers of an only child were distorted nightmares of reality. But I trust absolutely what I remember about Julia.

Lillian Hellman (1905—1984)：Julia 参考译文： 童年

我小时候的记忆比许多人模糊：不知道为什么，童年一结束，我就别过脸去，但我知道决不是因为有着痛苦回忆这种常见的原因。关于这一点，多年来便困扰着我，但后来我发现，旧时儿事，通常不足以为信。有些人搬出好些昔日的盛事趣事来聊以自慰，有些人则念念不忘或真实或想象而来的痛苦，把它当成自己何以变得如此的口实。

我想我一向清楚自己的记性，知道那一段时间的记忆是可以相信的，明白生活中在何时又掺进了梦想或幻想。做过的梦和对梦想的需要，扭曲了发生的事件。我也很早就了解到，独生子之所以大吵大闹，是做恶梦之后所扭曲的结果。然而，对于茱丽亚的回忆，我百分之百相信是确实无误的。

美国女作家莉莲·海尔曼：《茱丽亚》 10. Cities and City Life

Living in cities is an art, and we need the vocabulary of art, of style, to describe the peculiar relationship between man and material that exists in the continual creative play of urban living. The city as we imagine it, then, soft of illusion, myth, aspiration, and nightmare, is as real, maybe more real, than the hard city one can locate on maps in statistics, in monographs on urban sociology and demography and architecture.

Jonathan Raban: Soft City 参考译文：

都市与都市生活

生活在都市里是一门艺术，我们需要艺术和时尚的词汇，才能描绘存在于日新月异的都市生活中的人类与物质之间的独特关系。于是我们想象的都市，充满了柔性的幻想、神话和梦魇。这样的城市，比起可按统计值绘制在地图上、可在都市社会学、人口学、建筑学专著中见到的那种生硬城市，都是同样真实的，甚或更加真实。

英国作家乔纳森·拉班：《柔性城市》 11. Conscience

When I contemplate the accumulation of guilt and remorse which, like a garbage-can, I carry through life, and which is fed not only by the lightest action but by the most harmless pleasure, I feel Man to be of all living things the most biologically incompetent all ill-organized. Why has he acquired a seventy years’ lifespan only to poison it incurably by the mere being of himself? Why has he thrown Conscience, like a dead rat, to putrefy in the well?

Cyril Connolly (1903—1974): The Unquiet Grave 参考译文： 良心

日积月累的内疚和悔恨，不仅来源于芝麻小事，也来源于无伤大雅的乐趣。它们就像垃圾桶，我一生却都得带着它们，一想到这里，我就感到万物之中就属人类最软弱、最天生不良。人类拥有七十年的寿命，却为何只是依然故我，无可救药地毒害自己的生命？为何人类把良心当成了死老鼠，扔进井里，任其腐烂？

英国作家康利诺：《不平静的坟墓》 12. Conservatives and Radicals

Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick or aged. In the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused, when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882): New England Reformers 参考译文：

保守派与激进派

在最没有精力或最骄奢淫逸的时候，人是保守派。在吃过晚餐尚未就寝之前，在生病或上了年纪之时，人是保守分子。但在早上，在智性良心觉醒时，在听音乐或读诗时，人又成了激进分子。

美国散文家、哲学家及诗人爱默生：《新英格兰改革家》 13. Day

The only exercise that Tess took at this time was after dark; and it was then, when out in the woods, that she seemed least solitary. She knew how to hit to a hair’s breadth that moment of evening when the light and the darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of day and the suspense of night neutralize each other, leaving absolute mental liberty. It is then that the plight of being alive becomes attenuated to its least possible dimensions. She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind—or rather that cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units.

Thomas Hardy (1840—1928)：Tess of the D’Urbervilles 参考译文：

白昼

苔丝目前的惟一活动是在天黑之后；当她走进森林里，似乎才会觉得最没有孤独感。她知道怎么抓住黄昏的片刻:那时，明暗平分秋色，白天里的压抑与夜晚的牵挂相互抵消，留下绝对的心灵自由，活着的苦痛而后降至最低。她并不害怕阴暗，她仅有的念头似乎就是想规避人们，或者说，世界这个冰冷的生长物，整体看来很骇人，可是它的个体非但不足畏惧，甚至还很可怜。

英国小说家及诗人托马斯·哈代：《德伯家的苔丝》 14. Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That , to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826) 参考译文： 宣言

我们认为以下的真理是不言而喻的：人人生而平等，造物主赋予每个人一些不可剥夺的权力，包括生命、自由和追求幸福的权力。的成立乃是为了保障这些权力，政权则由人民授权而来。对于无法保障这些全力的，人民有权改变或废除，进而建立新，并采取此原则为基础，以此方式组织权力，因为这是最有可能实现安全与幸福的方法。

美国第三届总统托马斯·杰斐逊（1776） 15. The Depths of Heart

In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, those dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like this, when the mind has a passive sensibility, but no active strength; when the imagination is a mirror, imparting vividness to all ideas, without the power of selecting or controlling them; then pray that your griefs may slumber, and the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—18)：The Haunted mind 参考译文： 内心深处

在每个人的内心深处，都有一座坟墓和土牢，外面的灯光、音乐和喧嚣狂欢，或许可以让我们把它们忘掉，把墓中死者和牢中匿身的犯人都忘记。但有时候，多半在深夜里，那些黑暗之处会猛然敞开。在这样的时刻里，内心没有自主的力量，只有消极地感受；想象力栩栩如生地写照出所有的想法，却无法加以选择或控制；于是你祈祷你能够停止忧愁，祈祷和忧愁相伴地懊悔不会挣脱而出。

美国作家霍桑：《神魂不安》 16. Difference of Opinion

One lesson we learn early, that in spite of seeming difference,

men are all of one pattern. We readily assume this with our mates, and are disappointed and angry if we find that we are premature, and that their watches are slower than ours. In fact, the only sin which we never forgive in each other is difference of opinion.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882): Society and Solitude

参考译文： 意见分歧

我们很早就学到了这一课：人在表面上尽管有所差异，实际上却都是一个样子。我们就是这样假设我们的伙伴的，所以如果我们发现自己来的早了，发现别人的表走得比较慢，我们就会失望和生气。事实上，我们永远无法互相原谅的惟一过错，就是意见有所分歧。

美国散文家、哲学家及诗人爱默生：《社会与孤寂》 17. Discovery

What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man’s breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not seen before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea, to discover a great thought—an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain—plough had gone over before. To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find a way to make the lightning carry your messages. To be the first—that is the idea.

Mark Twain (1835—1910)：The Innocents Abroad 参考译文： 发现

什么东西能带给人们最大的喜悦？什么事情最能让人踌躇满志、远远超乎其他任何经验？那就是“发现”！知道自己走在尚未有人踏足过的地方，看着人类未曾看过的东西，呼吸着人们尚未呼吸过的空气。产生新的观念，发现伟大的想法——这一块智性的瑰宝，就埋在许多心血曾经耕耘过的尘土之下。发现一颗新行星，发明一个新铰链，找到利用闪电传送讯息的方法。成为第一个——就是这么一个信念。

美国作家马克·吐温：《海外的天真汉》

18. El Dorado (1)

It seems as if a great deal were attainable in a world„where we all, at certain hours of the day, and with great gusto and dispatch, stow a portion of victuals finally and irretrievably into the bag which contains us. And it would seem also, on a hasty view, that the attainment of as much as possible was the one goal of man’s contentious life. And yet, as regards the spirit, this is but a semblance. We live in an ascending scale when we live happily, one thing leading to another in an endless series. There is always a new horizon for onward-looking men, and although we dwell on a small planet, immersed in petty business and not enduring beyond a brief period of years, we are so constituted that our hopes are inaccessible, like stars, and the term of hoping is prolonged until the term of life. To be truly happy is a question of how we begin and not of how we end, of what we want and not of what we have.

Robert Louis Stevenson （1850—14） 参考译文： 黄金国（1）

在这个世界上，可以得到的东西似乎很多„„在每天的某个特定时刻里，我们必会兴致高昂地急急把事务装进我们藏身地皮囊里。粗略一看，能拿多少就拿多少，似乎是人类哗嚷生命的目标之一。然而，在精神层面上，这不过是一种假象。生活幸福时，我们的生活就像处在往上的阶梯上，一级接着一级地上升。前进时，地平线不断变换，尽管我们生活在小小的地球上，琐事缠身，寿命只有短短几十年，我们仍生来就怀有如星辰般高不可及地愿望，一直到生命结束为止。真正的幸福，不在于结局如何，而在于如何开始；不在拥有什么，而在于想要什么。

英国作家史蒂文森 19. El Dorado (2)

There is only one wish realizable on the earth; only one thing that can be perfectly attained：death. And from a variety of circumstances we have no one to tell us whether it be worth attaining.

A strange picture we make on our way to our chimaeras, ceaselessly marching, grudging ourselves the time for rest; indefatigable,

adventurous pioneers. It is true that we shall never reach the goal; it is even more than probable that there is no such place; and if we lived for centuries and were endowed with the powers of a god, we should find ourselves not much nearer what we wanted at the end. O toiling hands of mortals! O unwearied feet, traveling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems to you, you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires if El Dorado. Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labor.

Robert Louis Stevenson （1850—14）

参考译文： 黄金国（2）

在这个世界上，一定会实现的愿望只有一个，必定会获得的东西只有一样，那就是死亡。

死有百态，但无一人能告诉我们死了究竟值不值得。

我们一往无前，追求想像中的目标，不肯稍作休息，看起来就像不知疲惫的大胆开拓者。我们并不会到达目标，甚至目标可能根本就不存在。即使我们活了数百年，拥有了神力，也会发现自己离所欲到达的目标并没有接近多少。人类劳碌的双手呀！人类不知疲倦的双脚呀！走呀走的，却不知道要走向何方！就快要到了，你觉得自己很快就能够爬上某个辉煌的巅峰，它就在前方不远处，你在夕阳余晖中，看到了黄金国的尖塔。你并不知道自己有多么幸福，因为满怀希望地前进，更胜于到达目的地。真正的成功，乃是奋斗。

英国作家史蒂文森 20. Inaugural Address

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.

I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917—1963) （January 20, 1961）

参考译文： 就职演说

在漫长的世界史上，只有少数几代人在自由临危之际，被赋予保卫自由的任务。

我不会逃避这种责任——我乐于接受。我想，我们当中没有人愿意和其他人和民族或时代的人交换身份。我们为此所付出的精力、信念和奉献将照亮我们的国家和所有为国效力的人——而这把火的光辉也能够真正照亮全世界。

因此，美国同胞们：不要问你们的国家可以为你做些什么，而是问你自己能为你们的国家做些什么。

我的世界公民同胞们：不要问美国能为你们做些什么，而是问我们能够共同为人类的自由做些什么。

最后，不论诸位是美国公民还是世界各国公民，请以我们所要求于你们的那种力量和牺牲的高度标准同样来要求我们。我们有美好的良心作我们惟一可靠的报酬，有历史作我们所作所为的最后裁判，让我们迈步向前领导我们所挚爱的国家，祈求上帝的祝福和帮助，但我们明白，上帝的工作在当今世界，其实就是我们自己的工作。

美国第三十五届总统肯尼迪1961年1月20日的就职演说 21. England and the English

There is nothing so sad or so good that you will not find an Englishman doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles; he supports his king on loyal principles and cuts off his king’s head on republican principles. His watchword is always Duty; and he never forgets that the nation which lets its duty get on the opposite side to its interest is lost.

George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)：Napoleon 参考译文：

英格兰与英国人

你会发现，英国人所做的事，要么极坏，要么极好，可是呢，你就是不会发现他22理亏。他们做什么都是有有原则的。和你打仗时，他们根据爱国原则；抢劫你的时候，根据商业原则；奴役你的时候，根据帝国主义原则；欺负你的时候，根据男子汉原则；支持皇室嘛，根据忠诚原则；把国王的头砍掉呢，则是依据共和原则。他的口号都是“责任”，而且他也从没忘记过，让责任变得违背利益的那个国家已经消失了。

爱尔兰剧作家、小说家及评论家潇伯纳：《拿破仑》 22. Experience

Experience is not a matter of having actually swum the Hellespont, or danced with the dervishes, or slept in a doss-house. It is a matter of sensibility and intuition, of seeing and hearing the significant things, of paying attention at the right moments, of understanding and

coordinating. Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with happens to him.

Aldous Huxley (14—1963)：Texts and Pretexts 参考译文： 经验

经验这件事嘛，并非是真的要去泅渡海勒斯海峡，要去和托钵僧共舞，或是去投宿廉价客栈。经验一事乃是关乎感觉和本能，在看到和听说了有意义的事情时，能够在恰当时刻留意到并且有所领悟和协调。经验，并不是指人遇到了什么，而是指人如何处理所遇到的事情。

英国作家奥尔德斯·赫胥黎：《正题与藉口》 23. The Four Freedoms

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882—1945)：January 6, 1941, one of annual messages to Congress

参考译文： 四大自由

在我们力求安定德未来日子里，我们期待一个以人类四大基本自由为基础的世界。

第一， 世界各地都有言论与表达的自由。

第二， 世界各地人人都有用自己的方式来崇拜上帝的自由。

第三， 有免于匮乏的自由，用世俗的话来说，亦即在经济上保障世界各国的居民都能

够拥有健康和平的生活。

第四， 有免于恐惧的自由，用世俗的话来说，亦即彻底地世界性裁减军备以至于世界

上任何地方的任何国家都无法侵犯任何邻国。

美国第三十二届总统罗斯福：1941年1月6日致国会咨文

24. French Revolution

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Charles Dickens (1818—1870)：A Tale of Two Cities 参考译文： 法国大

那是一个昌盛之世，但也是一个衰败之世；那是一个智慧的时代，但也是一个愚蠢的时代；那是一个充满信仰的新纪元，但也是一个充满怀疑的新纪元；那是光明的时刻，但也是黑暗的时刻；那是希望的春天，但也是绝望的冬天；我们眼前拥有一切，但我们眼前也一无所有；我们都直接走向天堂，也直接走向地狱——总之，那个时期如同现在一样喧嚷的官方不论好坏，只不过是在最大程度上要求人们非接受它不可。

英国小说家狄更斯：《双城记》 25. Hate

There is no hate without fear. Hate is crystallized fear, fear’s dividend, fear objectivized. We hate what we fear and so where hate is, fear is lurking. Thus we hate what threatens our person, our vanity and our dreams and plans for ourselves. If we can isolate this element in what we hate we may be able to cease from hating.

Cyril Connolly (1903—1974)：The Unquiet Grave 参考译文： 仇恨

仇恨之中必有恐惧。仇恨是恐惧的结晶、附属品和客体化。我们讨厌我们所害怕的东西，所以有恨的地方，就潜伏着恐惧。也因此，我们讨厌会威胁我们的人身、自由、隐私、收入、声望、虚荣、梦想或是个人计划的东西。如果我们能够在仇恨之中滤出恐惧的因素，或许我们就不会再有仇恨了。

英国作家康诺利：《不平静的坟墓》 26. Human Nature

Two Principles in human nature reign:

self-love, to urge, and reason, restrain; Nor this a good, nor this a bad we call, Each works its end, to move or govern all: And to their proper operation still,

Ascribe all good; to their improper, ill.

Alexander Pope (1688—1744): An Essay on Man

参考译文： 人性

人性之中，有两大支配之禀性：

私心，驱策言行；理性，使之收敛； 两者无善恶之谓，

各有目标，或推动一切，或约束一切： 运用得当，善莫大焉， 运用不当，即为恶焉。

英国作家亚历山大·蒲伯：《论人》 27. Idleness

Idleness predominates in many lives where it is not suspected; for, being a vice which terminates in itself, it may be enjoyed without injury to others; and it is therefore not watched like fraud, which endangers property; or like pride, which naturally seeks its gratifications in another’s inferiority. Idleness is a silent and peaceful quality, that neither raises envy by ostentation, nor hatred by opposition; and therefore nobody is busy to censure or detect it.

Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)：Idleness 参考译文： 懒散

懒散这种恶习仅限于个人人可以懒散却不会伤害到别人，也因此，它在不觉中主宰着许多人的生活。懒散看起来并不像会危及财产的诈骗行为，也不像骄傲那样，藉由别人的劣势来获取自己的满足感。懒散具有静默安详的特性，不会因为卖弄而惹人嫉妒，也不会因为反对什么而招致怨恨，所以没有人忙于非难或盘查它。

英国诗人及评论家塞缪尔·约翰逊：《懒散》 28. An Illusion

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life. The strange thing is that each one who has gone through that bitter disillusionment adds to it in his turn, unconsciously, by the power within him which is stronger than himself.

William Somerest Maugham (1874—1965)：Of Human Bondage 参考译文： 一种错觉

以为青春是快乐的，这是一种错觉，是青春已逝的人的错觉；年轻人知道自己是不幸的。因为他们充满被灌输而来的不切实际的理想，他们每次只要接触到现实，就会碰得头破血流。他们看来就像一场阴谋的牺牲品，因为他们读的书由于精选过而变得完美，长辈回首往事时，隔了健忘这一层玫瑰色薄雾，用他们的话为年轻人准备了不真实的生活。年轻人必须自己去发现，他们所读来听来的事情，全都是谎言、谎言、谎言；每一次的这种发现，都像是一根钉子，把身体钉在生活的十字架上。奇怪的是，每个人在经过这种青涩的幻灭之后，因内心某种不能控制自己的力量，而无意识地为其增添了幻觉。

英国小说家毛姆:《人性的枷锁》

29. Love

Madame, it is an old word and each one takes it new and wears it out himself. It is a word that fills with meaning as a bladder with air and the meaning goes out of it as quickly. It may be punctured as a bladder is punctured and patched and blown up again and if you have not had it it does not exist for you. All people talk of it, but those who have had it are marked by it, and I would not wish to speak of it further since of all things it is the most ridiculous to talk of and only fools go through it many times.

Ernest Hemingway（19—1961）：Death in the Afternoon 参考译文： 爱情

夫人，爱情是个陈旧的字眼，每个人接过它时它是新的，然后耗尽它。它是一个富含意义的字眼，就像一个充满空气的囊袋，意义很快就会漏掉。它可能会被戳破，就像破了的囊袋一样，贴了补丁之后由爆炸，而且如果你不拥有它，它也就不会为你存在。人人都谈论爱情，但爱情只在拥有爱情的人身上留下痕迹，对此我并不想多说什么，因为在所有事情中，就属谈论爱情最为荒缪，而且只有傻子才会去经历好几回。

美国作家海明威：《午后死亡》 30．New York

A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus

heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and accompaniment of internal engines. The island of Manhattan is without any doubt the greatest human concentrate on earth, the poem whose magic is

comprehensible to millions of permanent residents but whose full meaning will always remain illusive. At the feet of the tallest and plushest offices lie the crummiest slums. The genteel mysteries housed in the Riverside Church are only a few blocks from the voodoo charms of Harlem. The merchant princes, riding to Wall Street in their limousines down the East River Drive, pass within a few hundred yards of the gypsy kings; but the princes do not know they are passing the kings, and the kings are not up yet anyway—they live a more leisurely life than the princes and get drunk more consistently.

E. B. White (19—1985)：Here Is New York 参考译文： 纽约

一首诗压缩在小小篇幅里，加进音乐感，平添了意味。纽约市宛如诗歌韵文：它把所有的生活和各种族类型的人，都压缩在一个小岛上，并且添进了乐感和内燃机的伴奏。曼哈顿毫无疑问是世界上最大的人类缩影之地，千百万永久居民领略这首诗的魔力，但诗的全部意味永远扑朔迷离。在最高耸最豪华的办公楼底下，是最肮脏破旧的贫民窟。河畔教堂内储藏的风雅神秘之物，和哈林区的巫毒符咒

只隔着几个街区。商业巨子坐在黑头车上，沿着东河大道驶向华尔街，离个几百码和吉普赛王交错而过却浑然不知。那些吉普赛王还没有起床呢，比起商业巨子，他们的生活更加悠哉，更加一醉方休。

美国作家怀特：《这就是纽约》 30. Nostalgia

It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness I have in mind. With Americans, it is a national trait, as native to us as the roller coaster or the jukebox. It is no simple longing for the home town or country of our birth. The emotion is Janus-faced: we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.

Carson McCullers (1917—1967)：Look Homeward, Americans 参考译文： 乡愁

我心里有某种乡愁，那是一种奇特的感情。对美国人来说，这是一种民族特性，就像云霄飞车或投币电唱机那样为我们所特有。乡愁，不单是指思念故乡或出生地。这种感情犹如两面神一样，有着双面脸；一面是怀恋熟悉的事物，另一面是渴望异域和陌生的冲动，我们夹在中间受其折磨。而最令我们怀起乡愁的地方，往往是一无所知的地方。

美国女作家卡森·麦卡勒斯：《望乡，美国人》 31. The Problem of Mankind

We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gulf between our scientific progress and our moral progress. One of the great problems of mankind is that we suffer from a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.

Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live. So much of modern life can be summarized in that suggestive phrase of Thoreau: “Improved means to an unimproved end.” This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem, confronting modern man. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. When the external of man’s nature subjugates the internal, dark storm clouds begin to form.

Martin Luther King (1929—1968): Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

参考译文：

人类的问题

我们必须热切不倦地努力，以拉近科学发展和道德进步之间的巨大差距。苦于心灵的贫瘠，是我们人类的一大问题，这与科技的丰足形成了触目惊心的对照。我们在物质上愈是富足，我们在道德和精神上就愈是贫乏。

人人都活在内在与外在这两大领域之中。内在领域即精神领域，以艺术、文学、道德、宗教的方式来呈现。外在领域由我们赖以生存的设备、工艺、机械和工具所组成。我们当今的问题在于，我们听任内在领域迷失在外在领域之中，听任生存的手段远远超前于生存的目的。现代生活在诸多方面都可援用梭罗那句启发性的警言来作结论：“改善了方法，却未能改善目标。”这就是现代人所遭遇到的一个重大困境，一个严重麻烦的问题。如果心灵没有跟着一起成长，那么物质力量愈大，所招致的危险也就愈大。一旦人性中的外在力量胜过了内在力量，乌云暴雨便会开始形成。

美国黑人民权领袖马丁·路德·金：《我们从这里走向何方：混乱还是社区？》 32. Silence

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourse and

all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.

Henry D. Thoreau (1817—1862)：A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers

参考译文： 沉默

沉默是天下通行的避难法，是随所有乏味交谈和蠢行之后而来的结果，是抚慰我们各种苦恼的慰藉，无论是厌腻或失望，它都受欢迎。不管是很杰出还是很拙劣的画家，不论图画画得有多么糟糕，他都不太会去把背景涂抹掉，背景始终是我们那不可侵犯得避难所，我们在那里不会受到言行的侮辱或人身的攻击。

美国作家及思想家亨利·梭罗：《在康科德和梅里马克河畔度过的一周》 33. Social Problems

These are issues that concern us today：the prevention of war; the protection of the environment; the balancing of population and resources; the management of energy so that we will neither exhaust our resources with unbridled growth nor contaminate the environment; the distribution of resources among nations and groups who have been differently dowered in the past by nature and history; the humanization of technology so that technology can be used for human ends and not primarily for profit or for power; the replanning of towns and cities so that neighborhoods can again be a microcosm of three-generational wholeness of life; the creation of transcendental values that will no longer set members of one religion against another, or of one ideology against another, so that all human

beings can move in new ways without being traitors to the old. Of these, only the need to prevent was as clear to me then as it is now.

Perhaps most important of all, I did not have any doubt then that the world was changing, that change was in the very air we breathed, absolutely unpreventable and absolutely necessary. I think this too is part of the quality of life, that human beings must have a chance to learn to cherish the past, act in the present, and leave the future open.

Margaret Mead (1901—1978)：Reflections on the Human Condition 参考译文： 社会问题

这些是今日和我们息息相关德问题：防止战争；保护环境；人口与资源的平衡；资源管理，以免人口激增而耗尽资源和污染环境；国家团体之间的资源分配，它们过去由于自然和历史因素而分配不均；科技的人性化，使科技能应用在人性化的目的上，而非只用于利益或权力之上；重新规划乡镇和都市，让邻里之间能够再度成为一个三代同堂、生活完整的小天地；创造超越性的价值观念，使得某个宗教信仰或是某个思想体系的人不在敌视异己，人们也就都无需为新弃旧。在这些问题当中，就我看来，惟有预防的需要始终明确不变。

或许最重要的是，我当年就毫不怀疑世界正在改变，其改变无处不在，绝对必要而无可阻挡。我认为这是生活品质的一部分，亦即，人们应该有机会去学会珍惜过去，学习在此时此刻就行动，并且留给未来开放的空间。

美国人类学家玛格丽特·米德：《关于人类状况的感想》 34．The Sympathy of Nature

Such was the sympathy of Nature—that wild, heathen Nature of the forest, never subjugated by human law, nor illuminated by higher

truth„Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a death-like slumber, must always create a sunshine, filling the heart so full radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—18)：The Scarlet Letter

参考译文：

大自然的恻隐之心

这是大自然的恻隐之心——森林那种野性、未开化的大自然模样，从未受制于人类法律，也未曾受过高深真理的启迪„„爱，无论是初生的，或是从死亡般的沉睡中苏醒过来的，总会产生一道阳光，让内心充满光芒，流溢到外在世界。

美国作家霍桑：《红字》 34. Three Passions

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 deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, 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 least—I have found.

With equal passion I have 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 the heavens. But always pity brought 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 mockery 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.

Bertrand Russell (1872—1970)：Autobiography 参考译文： 三种激情

有三种单纯却不可挡的激情主宰了我的生活：对爱的渴望，对知识的追求，以及对人类苦难所怀的难忍怜悯。这些激情犹如狂风，吹得我忽东忽西，行迹不定，飘过深沉的苦海，来到绝望的边缘。

我追求过爱，首先是因为它带来狂喜——莫大的狂喜，我常会为了几个小时的这种狂喜，把生活的其他一切都牺牲掉。我追求过爱，再者是因为它能排解寂寞——那种可怕的寂寞，陷入其中，打着哆嗦的知觉会在世界的边缘上，看到冰冷、深不可测、毫无生息的深渊。我追求过爱，最后是因为在爱的结合之中，在神秘的缩影里，我看到了圣贤和诗人所想像和预示出的天堂。这就是我所追求的，尽管看似超乎人生的美好，但这就是我——最终——所发现的。

怀着同样的激情，我追求过知识。我希望能够认识人类的心灵。想知道星星为什么会闪烁，想了解数字支配流变的毕达哥拉斯力量。我在这方面小有成就，但不太多。

爱与知识，在可能的情况下，引人向上通往天堂。然而，怜悯总是把我带回尘世。痛苦的哭泣声在我心里回荡。饥饿的儿童，被压迫者所折磨的苦难者，给子女造成重担的无助老人，充满孤独、贫困和痛苦的整个世界，嘲讽着人生的应有面貌。我渴望减缓不幸，但我为力，我也同样受苦。

这就是我的生命。我发现它是值得活的，如果有机会，我乐意再活一次。 英国哲学家罗素：《自传》 35. Westminster Abbey

When I look upon the toms of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.

Joseph Addison (1672—1719)： Spectator (No. 26) 参考译文：

威斯敏斯特教堂

看着伟人之墓，我不再有欣羡之情；读着红粉佳人的墓志铭，纵情之欲烟消云散；看见墓石上的悲痛父母，我内心一阵怜悯；看见双亲之坟，想到我们也将随之而去，便觉忧伤无益；看到国王和罢黜自己的人躺在一起，想到互相敌对的人并肩而卧，想到争论不休而让世界的僧侣，人类那种鸡毛蒜皮的竞争、内讧和争辩，就让卧感到悲哀与惊讶。读到墓上的一些日期，有些死于昨天，有些死于六百年前，我想在审判日那一天，我们都会变成同时代的人。

英国政治家及散文作家约瑟夫·艾迪生：《旁观者》第26期 36. What It Is to Love

Good shepherd, tell this youth what’s is to love. It is to be all made of sighs and tears; „

It is to be all made of faith and service; „

It is to be all made of fantasy,

All made of passion, and all made of wishes; All adoration, duty, and observance,

All humbleness, all patience, and impatience, All purity, all trial, all obedience.

William Shakespeare (15—1616)：As You Like It (Act 5 Scene 2)

参考译文：

恋爱是怎么一回事

好牧人，告诉这小伙子恋爱是怎么一回事。 恋爱就是叹息与流泪； „„

就是忠心耿耿，终日效劳； „„

就是痴心妄想，

就是一腔激情，满心殷盼； 就是倾心仰慕，唯命是从，

毕恭毕敬，充满耐性又坐立不安， 一派纯洁，一切考验，一切顺从。

英国大文豪威廉·莎士比亚：《皆大欢喜》5幕2场