2008年jk罗琳哈佛毕业典礼演讲（中英文对照）默认分类 2009-07-17 20:13 阅读1281
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“2008年6月5日是哈佛大学的毕业典礼，请来的演讲嘉宾是《哈利波特》的作者j.k.
罗琳女士。她的演讲题目是《失败的好处和想象的重要性》（the fringe benefits of failure,
and the importance of imaginatio n）。我读了一遍讲稿，觉得很好，很感染人。
她几乎没有谈到哈里波特，而是说了年轻时的一些经历。虽然j·k·
罗琳现在很有钱，是英国仅次于女皇的最富有的女人，但是她曾经有一段非常艰辛的日
子，30岁了，还差点流落街头。她主要谈的是，自己从
这段经历中学到的东西。”
以下是英文文稿和中文翻译：
text as delivered follows. copyright of jk rowling, june 2008 president faust, members of the harvard corporation and the board of overseers, members of the faculty, proud parent s, and, above all, graduates. the first thing i would like to say is ?thank you.? not only he world?s largest gryffindor reunion. k. achievable goals: the first step to self improvement. actually, i have wracked
my mind and heart for what i ought to say to you today. i have asked myself what i
wish i had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons i have learned in
the 21 years that have expired between tha t day and this.
agination.
these may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but plea se bear with me.
hose closest to me expected of me.
i was convinced that the only thing i wanted to do, ever, was to write novels.
however, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of
whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing
personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. i know that the
irony strikes with t
he force of a cartoon anvil, now.
d off down th
e classics corridor.
i cannot remember telling my parents that i was studying classics; they might
well have found out for the first time on graduation day. of all the subjects on this
planet, i think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than greek
mythology when it came to securing the keys to an exec utive bathroom.
i would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that i do not blame my parents
for their point of view. there is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering
you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel,
responsibility lies with you. what is more, i cannot criticise my parents for hoping
that i would never experience poverty. they had been poor themselves, and i have since
been poor, and i quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. poverty
entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty
humiliations and hardships. climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is
indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is roma nticised only by fools.
what i feared most for myself at your age was not povert y, but failure.
at your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where i
had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time
at lectures, i had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been
the me
asure of success in my life and that of my peers.
i am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and
well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. talent and intelligence
never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates, and i do not for a moment
suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment. however, the fact that you are graduating from harvard suggests that you are not
very well-acquainted with failure. you might be driven by a fear of failure quite
as much as a desire for success. indeed, your conception of failure might not be too
far from the average person?s idea of success, so high have you already flown.
every usual standard, i was the biggest failure i knew. now, i am not going to
stand here and tell you that failure is fun. that period of my life was a dark one,
and i had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented
as a kind of fairy tale resolution. i had no idea then how far the tunnel extended,
and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality. so why do i talk about the benefits of failure? simply because failure meant a
stripping away of the inessential. i stopped pretending to myself that i was anything
other than what i was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work
that mattered to me. had i really succeeded at anything else, i might never have found
the determination to succeed in the one arena i believed i truly belonged. i was set
free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and i was still alive, and i still
had a daughter whom i adored, and i had an old typewriter and a big idea. and so rock
bottom became t
he solid foundation on which i rebuilt my life. you might never fail on the scale i did, but some failure in life is inevitable.
it is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously
that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
failure gave me an inner security that i had never attained by passing examinations.
failure taught me things about myself that i could have learned no other way. i
discovered tha
t i had a strong will, and more discipline than i had suspected; i also found
out that i had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies. the knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that
you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. you will never truly know
yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by
adversity. such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it
has been worth more than any qualification i ever earned.
th humans whose experiences we have never shared. one of the greatest formative
experiences of my life preceded harry potter, though it informed much of what i
subsequently wrote in those books. this revelation came in the form of one of my
earliest day jobs. though i was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours,
i paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the african research department at amn esty international?s headquarters in london. there in my little office i read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of
totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the
outside world of what was happening to them. i saw photographs of those who had
disappeared without trace, sent to amnesty by their desperate families and friends.
i read the testimony of torture victims篇二：jk罗琳 - 2008哈佛大学毕业典礼上的
演讲(
jk罗琳 - 2008哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲（视频+中英对照文稿）
the fringe benefits of failure, and the importance of imagination j.k. rowling copyright june 2008 as prepared for delivery president faust, members of the harvard corporation and the board of overseers,
members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates, actually, i have wracked my mind and heart for what i ought to say to you today.
i have asked myself what i wish i had known at my own graduation, and what important
lessons i have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this. these might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
i was convinced that the only thing i wanted to do, ever, was to write novels.
however, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of
whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing
personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.
i cannot remember telling my parents that i was studying classics; they might
well have found out for the first time on graduation day. of all subjects on this
planet, i think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than greek
mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
i would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that i do not blame my parents
for their point of view. there is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering
you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel,
responsibility lies with you. what is more, i cannot criticise my parents for hoping
that i would never experience poverty. they had been poor themselves, and i have since
been poor, and i quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. poverty
entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty
humiliations and hardships. climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is
indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only
by fools. what i feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure. at your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where i
had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time
at lectures, i had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been
the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.
i am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and
well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. talent and intelligence
never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates, and i do not for a moment
suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and
contentment. however, the fact that you are graduating from harvard suggests that you are not
very well-acquainted with failure. you might be driven by a fear of failure quite
as much as a desire for success. indeed, your conception of failure might not be too
far from the average persons idea of success, so high have you already flown
academically. now, i am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. that period
of my life was a dark one, and i had no idea that there was going to be what the press
has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. i had no idea how far the
tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather
than a reality. so why do i talk about the benefits of failure? simply because failure meant a
stripping away of the inessential. i stopped pretending to myself that i was anything
other than what i was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work
that mattered to me. had i really succeeded at anything else, i might never have found
the determination to succeed in the one arena i believed i truly belonged. i was set
free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and i was still alive, and
i still had a daughter whom i adored, and i had an old typewriter and a big idea.
and so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which i rebuilt my life. you might never fail on the scale i did, but some failure in life is inevitable.
it is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously
that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default. failure gave me an inner security that i had never attained by passing
examinations. failure taught me things about myself that i could have learned no other
way. i discovered that i had a strong will, and more discipline than i had suspected;
i also found out that i had friends whose value was truly above rubies. the knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that
you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. you will never truly know
yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by
adversity. such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it
has been worth more to me than any qualification i ever earned. you might think that i chose my second theme, the importance of imagination,
because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. though
i will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, i have learned to value imagination in a much
broader sense. imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that
which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. in its arguably
most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to
empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared. one of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded harry potter, though
it informed much of what i subsequently wrote in those books. this revelation came
in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. though i was sloping off to write stories
during my lunch hours, i paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research
department at amnesty internationals headquarters in london. there in my little office i read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of
totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the
outside world of what was happening to them. i saw photographs of those who had
disappeared without trace, sent to amnesty by their desperate families and friends.
i read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. i opened
handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings
and rapes. and as long as i live i shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly
hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as i have never
heard since. the door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to
run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. she had just given him
the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his countrys regime,
his mother had been seized and executed. every day of my working week in my early 20s i was reminded how incredibly
fortunate i was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where
legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone. every day, i saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their
fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. i began to have nightmares, literal
nightmares, about some of the things i saw, heard and read. and yet i also learned more about human goodness at amnesty international than
i had ever known before. amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned
for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. the power of human empathy,
leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. ordinary people,
whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers
to save people they do not know, and will never meet. my small participation in that
process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life. unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without
having experienced. they can think themselves into other peoples minds, imagine
themselves into other peoples places. of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally
neutral. one might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as
to understand or sympathise.
i might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that i do not
think they have any fewer nightmares than i do. choosing to live in narrow spaces
can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. i think
the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. they are often more afraid. one of the many things i learned at the end of that classics corridor down which
i ventured at the age of 18, in search of something i could not then define, was this,
written by the greek author plutarch: what we achieve inwardly will change outer
reality. that is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of
our lives. it expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world,
the fact that we touch other peoples lives simply by existing. but how much more are you, harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other peoples
lives? your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned
and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. even your
nationality sets you apart. the great majority of you belong to the worlds only
remaining superpower. the way you vote, the way you篇三：jk罗琳 2008哈佛大学毕
业典礼上的演讲
the fringe benefits of failure, and the importance of imagination j.k. rowling
tercentenarytheatre, june 5, 2008 失败的好处和想象力的重要性
哈佛大学毕业典礼
j.k. 罗琳
2008年6月5日
presidentfaust, members of the harvard corporation and the board of overseers, membersofthefaculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates, 福斯特主席，哈佛公司和监察委员会的各位成员，
首先请允许我说一声谢谢。哈佛不仅给了我无上的荣誉，连日来为这个演讲经受的恐惧
和紧张，更令我减肥成功。这真是一个双赢的局面。现在我要做的就是深呼吸几下，眯着眼
睛看看前面的大红横幅，安慰自己正在世界上最大的魔法学院聚会上。
发表毕业演说是一个巨大的责任，至少在我回忆自己当年的毕业典礼前是这么认为的。
那天做演讲的是英国著名的哲学家baroness mary warnock，对她演讲的回忆，对我写今天
的演讲稿，产生了极大的帮助，因为我不记得她说过的任何一句话了。这个发现让我释然，
让我
不再担心我可能会无意中影响你放弃在商业，法律或政治上的大好前途，转而醉心于成
为一个快乐的魔法师。
你们看，如果在若干年后你们还记得―快乐的魔法师‖这个笑话，那就证明我已经超越
了baroness mary warnock。建立可实现的目标——这是提高自我的第一步。
actually, i have wracked my mind and heart for what i ought to say to you today.
i have asked myself what i wish i had known at my own graduation, and what important
lessons i have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.
实际上，我为今天应该和大家谈些什么绞尽了脑汁。我问自己什么是我希望早在毕业典
礼上就该了解的，而从那时起到现在的21年间，我又得到了什么重要的启示。
我想到了两个答案。在这美好的一天，当我们一起庆祝你们取得学业成就的时刻，我希
望告诉你们失败有什么样的益处；在你们即将迈向―现实生活‖的道路之际，我还要褒扬想
象力的重要性。
thesemayseemquixoticorparadoxicalchoices, but bear with me.
这些似乎是不切实际或自相矛盾的选择，但请先容我讲完。
回顾21岁刚刚毕业时的自己，对于今天42岁的我来说，是一个稍微不太舒服的经历。
可以说，我人生的前一部分，一直挣扎在自己的雄心和身边的人对我的期望之间。
iwasconvincedthattheonlythingiwantedtodo, ever, was to write novels. however,
my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had
been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal
quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.
我一直深信，自己唯一想做的事情，就是写小说。不过，我的父母，他们都来自贫穷的
背景，没有任何一人上过大学，坚持认为我过度的想象力是一个令人惊讶的个人怪癖，根本
不足以让我支付按揭，或者取得足够的养老金。
iknowtheironystrikeslikewiththeforceofacartoonanvilnow, but…
我现在明白反讽就像用卡通铁砧去打击你，但...
他们希望我去拿个职业学位，而我想去攻读英国文学。最后，达成了一个双方都不甚满
意的妥协：我改学现代语言。可是等到父母一走开，我立刻放弃了德语而报名学习古典文学。icannotremembertellingmyparentsthatiwasstudyingclassics; they might well have
found out for the first time on graduation day. of all the subjects on this planet,
i think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than greek mythology
when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
我不记得将这事告诉了父母，他们可能是在我毕业典礼那一天才发现的。我想，在全世
界的所有专业中，他们也许认为，不会有比研究希腊神话更没用的专业了，根本无法换来一
间独立宽敞的卫生间。
iwouldliketomakeitclear, in parenthesis, that i do not blame my parents for their
point of view. there is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in
the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility
lies with you. what is more, i cannot criticise my parents for hoping that i would
never experience poverty. they had been poor themselves, and i have since been poor,
and i quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. poverty entails
fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations
and hardships. climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something
on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
我想澄清一下：我不会因为父母的观点，而责怪他们。埋怨父母给你指错方向是有一个
时间段的。当你成长到可以控制自我方向的时候，你就要自己承担责任了。尤其是，我不会
因为父母希望我不要过穷日子，而责怪他们。他们一直很贫穷，我后来也一度很穷，所以我
很理解他们。贫穷并不是一种高贵的经历，它带来恐惧、压力、有时还有绝望，它意味着许
许多多的羞辱和艰辛。靠自己的努力摆脱贫穷，确实可以引以自豪，但贫穷本身只有对傻瓜
而言才是浪漫的。
what i feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
我在你们这个年龄，最害怕的不是贫穷，而是失败。
atyourage, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where i had
spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at
lectures, i had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the
measure of success in my life and that of my peers. 我在您们这么大时，明显缺乏在
大学学习的动力，我花了太久时间在咖啡吧写故事，而在课堂的时间却很少。我有一个通过
考试的诀窍，并且数年间一直让我在大学生活和同龄人中不落人后。
iamnotdullenoughtosupposethatbecauseyouareyoung, gifted and well-educated, you
have never known hardship or heartbreak. talent and intelligence never yet inoculated
anyone against the caprice of the fates, and i do not for a moment suppose that everyone
here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.
我不想愚蠢地假设，因为你们年轻、有天份，并且受过良好的教育，就从来没有遇到困
难或心碎的时刻。拥有才华和智慧，从来不会使人对命运的反复无常有所准备；我也不会假
设大家坐在这里冷静地满足于自身的优越感。
however, the fact that you are graduating from harvard suggests that you are not
very well-acquainted with failure. you might be driven by a fear of failure quite
as much as a desire for success. indeed, your conception of failure might not be too
far from the average persons idea of success, so high have you already flown
academically.
相反，你们是哈佛毕业生的这个事实，意味着你们并不很了解失败。你们也许极其渴望
成功，所以非常害怕失败。说实话，你们眼中的失败，很可能就是普通人眼中的成功，毕竟
你们在学业上已经达到很高的高度了。
ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but
the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. so i think it
fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation
day, i had failed on an epic scale. an exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded,
and i was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern britain,
without being homeless. the fears my parents had had for me, 最终，我们所有人都必须自己决定什么算作失败，但如果你愿意，世界是相当渴望给你
一套标准的。所以我承认命运的公平，从任何传统的标准看，在我毕业仅仅七年后的日子里，
我的失败达到了史诗般空前的规模：短命的婚姻闪电般地破裂，我又失业成了一个艰难的单
身母亲。除了流浪汉，我是当代英国最穷的人之一，真的一无所有。当年父母和我自己对未
来的担忧，现在都变成了现实。按照惯常的标准来看，我也是我所知道的最失败的人。 now,
i am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. that period of my life
was a dark one, and i had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since
represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. i had no idea how far the tunnel
extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a
reality.
现在，我不打算站在这里告诉你们，失败是有趣的。那段日子是我生命中的黑暗岁月，
我不知道它是否代表童话故事里需要历经的磨难，更不知道自己还要在黑暗中走多久。很长
一段时间里，前面留给我的只是希望，而不是现实。
sowhydoitalkaboutthebenefitsoffailure? simply because failure meant a stripping
away of the inessential. i stopped pretending to myself that i was anything other
than what i was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that
mattered to me. had i really succeeded at anything else, i might never have found
the determination to succeed in the one arena i believed i truly belonged. i was set
free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and i was still alive, and
i still had a daughter whom i adored, and i had an old typewriter and a big idea.
and so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which i rebuilt my life.
那么为什么我要谈论失败的好处呢？因为失败意味着剥离掉那些不必要的东西。我因此
不再伪装自己、远离自我，而重新开始把所有精力放在对我最重要的事情上。如果不是没有
在其他领域成功过，我可能就不会找到，在一个我确信真正属于的舞台上取得成功的决心。
我获得了自由，因为最害怕的虽然已经发生了，但我还活着，我仍然有一个我深爱的女儿，
我还有一个旧打字机和一个很大的想法。所以困境的谷底，成为我重建生活的坚实基础。youmightneverfailonthescaleidid, but some failure in life is inevitable. it is
impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that
you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
你们可能永远没有达到我经历的那种失败程度，但有些失败，在生活中是不可避免的。
生活不可能没有一点失败，除非你生活的万般小心，而那也意味着你没有真正在生活了。无
论怎样，有些失败还是注定地要发生。
failuregavemeaninnersecuritythatihadneverattainedbypassingexaminations.
failure taught me things about myself that i could have learned no other way. i
discovered that i had a strong will, and more discipline than i had suspected; i also
found out that i had friends whose value was truly above rubies.
失败使我的内心产生一种安全感，这是我从考试中没有得到过的。失败让我看清自己，
这也是我通过其他方式无法体会的。我发现，我比自己认为的，要有更强的意志和决心。我
还发现，我拥有比宝石更加珍贵的朋友。
theknowledgethatyouhaveemergedwiserandstrongerfromsetbacksmeansthatyouare,
ever after, secure in your ability to survive. you will never truly know yourself,
or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. such
knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth
more to me than any qualification i ever earned.
从挫折中获得智慧、变得坚强，意味着你比以往任何时候都更有能力生存。只有在逆境
来临
的时候，你才会真正认识你自己，了解身边的人。这种了解是真正的财富，虽然是用痛
苦换来的，但比我以前得到的任何资格证书都有用。
如果给我一部时间机器，我会告诉21岁的自己，人的幸福在于知道生活不是一份漂亮
的成绩单，你的资历、简历，都不是你的生活，虽然你会碰到很多与我同龄或更老一点的人
今天依然还在混淆两者。生活是艰辛的，复杂的，超出任何人的控制能力，而谦恭地了解这
一点，将使你历经沧桑后能够更好的生存。
you might think that i chose my second theme, the importance of imagination,
because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. though
i will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, i have learned to value
imagination in a much broader sense. imagination is not only the uniquely human
capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and
innovation. in its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the
power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
对于第二个主题的选择——想象力的重要性——你们可能会认为是因为它对我重建生
活起到了帮助，但事实并非完全如此。虽然我愿誓死捍卫睡前要给孩子讲故事的价值观，我
对想象力的理解已经有了更广泛的含义。想象力不仅仅是人类设想还不存在的事物这种独特
的能力，为所有发明和创新提供源泉，它还是人类改造和揭露现实的能力，使我们同情自己
不曾经受的他人苦难。
oneofthegreatestformativeexperiencesofmylifeprecededharrypotter, though it
informed much of what i subsequently wrote in those books. this revelation came in
the form of one of my earliest day jobs. though i was sloping off to write stories
during my lunch hours, i paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research
department at amnesty internationals headquarters in london.
其中一个影响最大的经历发生在我写哈利波特之前，为我随后写书提供了很多想法。这
些想法成形于我早期的工作经历，在20多岁时，尽管我可以在午餐时间里悄悄写故事，可为
了付房租，我做的主要工作是在伦敦总部的大赦国际研究部门。
thereinmylittleofficeireadhastilyscribbledletterssmuggledoutoftotalitarianregime sbymenandwomenwhowereriskingimprisonmenttoinformtheoutsideworldofwhatwashappenin
gtothem. i saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to amnesty
by their desperate families and friends. i read the testimony of torture victims and
saw pictures of their injuries. i opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary
trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.
在我的小办公室，我看到了人们匆匆写的信件，它们是从极权主义政权被偷送出来的。
那些人冒着被监禁的危险，告知外面的世界他们那里正在发生的事情。我看到了那些无迹可
寻的人的照片，它们是被那些绝望的家人和朋友送来的。我看过拷问受害者的证词和被害的
照片。我打开过手写的目击证词，描述绑架和强奸犯的审判和处决。
因为他们的观点而责怪我的父母。埋怨父母给你指错方向是有时间段的。当你长到自
己可以掌握方向时，你就要自己承担责任了。尤其是，我不会因为自己希望不要经历贫穷
而责怪我的父母。他们是贫穷的，我也一直很贫穷。贫困带来的恐惧，压力有时是绝望，这
意味着屈辱和苦难。用您自己的努力摆脱贫困这确实是一件对自己而言骄傲的事情。但贫
穷本身只有对傻瓜而言才是浪漫的。我在你们这个年龄时，最害怕的不是贫穷，而是失败。
像你们这样大时，我明显缺乏在大学学习的动力。我花了太久在咖啡吧写故事，而在课堂
的时间就很少了。我有一个通过考试的诀窍，并且数年间一直认为我的生活在我的同龄人
中是成功的现在。我不愚蠢假设因为你们的年轻，天才和受过良好教育就从来没有困难或心
碎的时刻。才华和智商从来不会对命运的反复无常有所准备。我也不会假设大家都坐这里冷
静地满足于自身的优越感。但从哈佛毕业的事实表明，你们对失败
不熟悉。害怕失败像渴望成功一样强烈。事实上，您对失败的理解可能和普通人对成功的看法不会太远。因为你们已经站在如此之高的位置。最终，我们所有人都必须自己决定什么构成失败，但如果你愿意，世界是相当渴望给你一套标准的。因而我可以公平地讲，从任何传统的标准看，在我毕业仅仅七年后的日子里，我的失败就达到了空前的规模：一个异常短暂的破裂的婚姻、失业、一个单亲家长，像在现代英国的穷人一样，只是还没有到无家可归的地步罢了。眼前时刻浮现着父母和自己对未来的担心。按照惯常的标准来看，我是我所见过的最大的失败者。现在，我不打算站在这里告诉你失败是好玩的，我的那段生活经历是困窘不堪的；我更不知道新闻媒体所说的童话故事般的革命；我也不知道那种困苦要持续多久；在相当长的一段时间里，任何尽头的光明都只是一个希望而不是现实。那么，为什么我要谈论失败的好处呢？只是因为失败意味着剥离你不必需的东西。我不是在伪装自己，我只是直接把所有精力放在最重要的工作上。如果我不是没有在其他领域成功过，我可能绝不会有在真正属于自己的舞台上取得成功的决心。我获得了自由，因为我最害怕的已经发生了，但是我还活着，我还有一个我深爱着的女儿，还有一个旧打字机和一个大创意（指写哈利波特）。所以困境的谷底成为我重建生活的坚实基础。你可能永远不会有我这种失败的经历，但有些失败，在生活中是不可避免的。毫无挫折的生活是不存在，除非你生活的万般小心，可有些失
败还是会发生。失败让我内心安全，是我从通过考试中没有得到过的。失败教会我一些不能用其他方法获得的东西，我发现自己有坚强的意志，比想象中还多的原则，我也发现我拥有朋友----他们的价值远在红宝石之上。从挫折中得到知识将使你更加明智和坚强，也就是说您比以往任何时候更有能力生存。你从来没有真正认识自己，或通过逆境的检验认识到您的朋友的力量，直到
两者经受逆境的考验。对所有人而言，这种认知是一个真正的礼物。这是痛苦的胜利比我取得的任何资格有着更高的价值。给我一部时间机器，我会告诉 21 岁的自己：个人的幸福在于知道生命是不是一个获得或取得的核对清单。你的资历、简历，都不是你的生活，虽然你会遇到很多人和我同龄或者更老一点的人依然混淆两者。生活是困难的，复杂的，超出任何人的控制。谦恭地认识到这一点将使你历经沧桑后能够更好的生存。你可能会认为我选择了我的第二个主题：想象力的重要性因为这是重建我生活的一部分。但事实并非完全如此，虽然我永远捍卫睡前故事的价值，我已经学会了想象拥有的更广泛的意义。想象力不仅是人类独具能力：设想还不存在的事物是所有发明和创新的源泉。这种改造和揭露的能力，使我们能够对自己未经历的苦难者产生同理心。其中一个影响最大的经历在我写哈利波特的生活之前，但大部分是在我随后写的那些书里。这个想法成形于我早期的工作经历。在 20 多岁时，尽管我可以在午餐时间里悄悄写故事，可为了付房租，我做的主要工作是在伦敦总部的 ** 国际研究部门。在我的小办公室，我看到了人们在匆忙中写的信，这些信是从极权主义政权那里偷运出来的。那些人冒着被监禁的危险，告知外面的世界他们那里正在发生的事情。我看到那些无迹可寻的人的照片-----由他们的家人和朋友铤而走险地送到 ** 国际来的。我看过拷问受害者的证词和被害的照片，我也读过笔迹、目击证人的供词以及即决审判和处决的绑架和*犯的档案。我有很多的合作者是前政治犯，他们已离开家园流离失所，或逃亡流放，因为他们大胆地怀疑政府的民主问题。来我们办公室的访客有告密者以及想了解迫害真相的人。我将永远不会忘记：一个非洲 ** 的受害者-----一名当时比我还小的年轻男子，
他因在故乡的悲惨经历导致精神错乱。当他在摄像机前讲述被残暴的摧残的时候，他颤抖失
控。他比我稍高一点，但当时看来却像个脆弱的孩童。后来，我被安排护送他到地铁站，这
名生活已被残酷地打乱的男子，小心翼翼地握着我的手, 祝我未来生活幸福! 并且只要我还活着，我就会记得走过一个空荡荡的的走廊。突然从
背后的门里传来我从未听过的尖叫的痛苦和恐惧，门打开了，研究员探出她的头告诉我为坐
在她旁边的青年男子，调一杯热饮料。他刚被告知消息：为了报复他对国家政权的批评，
他母亲已被捕并执行了枪决。在我 20 多岁的时候，我工作的每一天，都在提醒我是多么的
幸运。生活在一个民选政府的国家，律师和公开审理，是每个人的权利。每天我都能看到很
多有关恶人的证据，他们为了获得或维持权力而对自己的同胞所犯下的暴行。我开始做噩梦，
都和我的所见所闻有关，并且我也了解到更多关于人类的善良。在国际 ** 组织学到的比以
前多得多。 ** 动员成千上万有自由信仰的人，去为那些因信仰而遭遇不幸的人奔走抗争。
人类同理心的力量，引发的集体拯救生命的行动，释放囚犯。众多幸福安康的普通百姓，携
手合作挽救那些素不相识或再也不能相逢的人。这在道德上是中立的，是我生命中一段最
谦恭和发人深省的生活经历。不同于这个星球上的任何其他生物，人类可以学习理解未经历
过的东西。他们可以设身处地为别人着想当然，这是一种能力就像我虚构的魔法世界一样。
这在道德上也是中立的。一个人可能会利用这种能力去操纵、或控制，但也有很多人选择
去了解或同情。很多人一点也不喜欢锻炼自己的想象力，他们选择待在舒适的生活范围内，
从来不麻烦地去想想如果自己出生在别处一切会怎么样。他们拒绝听到尖叫声或向笼子里窥
视，他们可以封闭自己的内心。只要痛苦不触及他们个
人，他们可以拒绝去了解。我可能会因诱惑而嫉妒那样生活的人，除了我不认为他们会比我
少做噩梦。选择住在狭窄的空间可导致某种形式的精神广场恐惧症，并给自己带来恐惧感。
我认为不想看到更多怪物的人，他们常常更害怕。更甚的是，那些选择不同情的人可能激活
真正的怪兽，因为我们自己没有严惩邪恶，冷漠与无视却让我们犯下了邪恶的共谋罪。在 21
岁时，我从古典文学中学到很多知识。其中之一我所不明白的是，希腊作家普鲁塔克所说的：
我们内心的实现将改变外在现实。那是一个多么惊人的论断，并在我们生活的每天被无数
次论证。这在某种程度上表明，我们与外部世界有逃不掉的瓜葛。事实上，我们以自己的存
在来接触其他人的生命。但哈佛大学的级的毕业生们，你们中的多少人会去触及他人的生命
呢？你们的智慧、努力工作的能力以及所受的教育将给予你们独特的地位和责任。即使您
的国籍把你与别人分开了，
福斯特主席，哈佛公司和监察委员会的各位成员，
各位老师、家长、全体毕业生们：
banners and convince myself that i am at the world’s largest gryffindors reunion.
首先请允许我说一声谢谢。哈佛不仅给了我无上的荣誉，连日来为这个演讲经受的恐惧和紧
张，更令我减肥成功。这真是一个双赢的局面。现在我要做的就是深呼吸几下，眯着眼睛看
看前面的大红横幅，安慰自己正在世界上最大的魔法学院聚会上。
发表毕业演说是一个巨大的责任，至少在我回忆自己当年的毕业典礼前是这么认为的。
那天做演讲的是英国著名的哲学家baroness mary warnock，对她演讲的回忆，对我写今天
的演讲稿，产生了极大的帮助，因为我不记得她说过的任何一句话了。这个发现让我释然，
让我不再担心我可能会无意中影响你放弃在商业，法律或政治上的大好前途，转而醉心于成
为一个快乐的魔法师。
你们看，如果在若干年后你们还记得“快乐的魔法师”这个笑话，那就证明我已经超越
了baroness mary warnock。建立可实现的目标——这是提高自我的第一步。
actually, i have wracked my mind and heart for what i ought to say to you today.
i have asked myself what i wish i had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons i have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that
day and this.
实际上，我为今天应该和大家谈些什么绞尽了脑汁。我问自己什么是我希望早在毕业典
礼上就该了解的，而从那时起到现在的21年间，我又得到了什么重要的启示。
我想到了两个答案。在这美好的一天，当我们一起庆祝你们取得学业成就的时刻，我希
望告诉你们失败有什么样的益处；在你们即将迈向“现实生活”的道路之际，我还要褒扬想
象力的重要性。
these may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but bear with me.
这些似乎是不切实际或自相矛盾的选择，但请先容我讲完。
looking back at the 21-year-old that i was at graduation, is a slightly 回顾21岁刚刚毕业时的自己，对于今天42岁的我来说，是一个稍微不太舒服的经历。
可以说，我人生的前一部分，一直挣扎在自己的雄心和身边的人对我的期望之间。
i was convinced that the only thing i wanted to do, ever, was to write novels.
however, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of
whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or
secure a pension.
我一直深信，自己唯一想做的事情，就是写小说。不过，我的父母，他们都来自贫穷的
背景，没有任何一人上过大学，坚持认为我过度的想象力是一个令人惊讶的个人怪癖，根本
不足以让我支付按揭，或者取得足够的养老金。
i know the irony strikes like with the force of a cartoon anvil now, but…
我现在明白反讽就像用卡通铁砧去打击你，但...
他们希望我去拿个职业学位，而我想去攻读英国文学。最后，达成了一个双方都不甚满
意的妥协：我改学现代语言。可是等到父母一走开，我立刻放弃了德语而报名学习古典文学。
i cannot remember telling my parents that i was studying classics; they might well
have found out for the first time on graduation day. of all the subjects on this planet, i think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than greek
mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
我不记得将这事告诉了父母，他们可能是在我毕业典礼那一天才发现的。我想，在全世
界的所有专业中，他们也许认为，不会有比研究希腊神话更没用的专业了，根本无法换来一
间独立宽敞的卫生间。 i would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that i do not
blame my parents for their point of view. there is an expiry date on blaming your
parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to
take the wheel,
responsibility lies with you. what is more, i cannot criticise my parents for
hoping that i would never experience poverty. they had been poor themselves, and i
have since been poor, and i quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience.poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means
a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. climbing out of poverty by your own
efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is
romanticised only by fools.
我想澄清一下：我不会因为父母的观点，而责怪他们。埋怨父母给你指错方向是有一个
时间段的。当你成长到可以控制自我方向的时候，你就要自己承担责任了。尤其是，我不会
因为父母希望我不要过穷日子，而责怪他们。他们一直很贫穷，我后来也一度很穷，所以我
很理解他们。贫穷并不是一种高贵的经历，它带来恐惧、压力、有时还有绝望，它意味着许
许多多的羞辱和艰辛。靠自己的努力摆脱贫穷，确实可以引以自豪，但贫穷本身只有对傻瓜
而言才是浪漫的。
what i feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
我在你们这个年龄，最害怕的不是贫穷，而是失败。
at your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where i
had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time
at lectures, i had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been
the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.
我在您们这么大时，明显缺乏在大学学习的动力，我花了太久时间在咖啡吧写故事，而
在课堂的时间却很少。我有一个通过考试的诀窍，并且数年间一直让我在大学生活和同龄人
中不落人后。
i am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and
well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates, and
i do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.
我不想愚蠢地假设，因为你们年轻、有天份，并且受过良好的教育，就从来没有遇到困
难或心碎的时刻。拥有才华和智慧，从来不会使人对命运的反复无常有免疫（直译）；我也不
会假设大家坐在这里冷静地满足于自身的优越感。
however, the fact that you are graduating from harvard suggests that you are not
very well-acquainted with failure. you might be driven by a fear of failure quite
as much as a desire for success. indeed, your conception of failure might not be too
far from the average persons idea of success, so high have you already flown
academically.
相反，你们是哈佛毕业生的这个事实，意味着你们并不很了解失败。你们也许极其渴望
成功，所以非常害怕失败。说实话，你们眼中的失败，很可能就是普通人眼中的成功，毕竟
你们在学业上已经达到很高的高度了。
最终，我们所有人都必须自己决定什么算作失败，但如果你愿意，世界是相当渴望给你
一套标准的。所以我承认命运的公平，从任何传统的标准看，在我毕业仅仅七年后的日子里，
我的失败达到了史诗般空前的规模：短命的婚姻闪电般地破裂，我又失业成了一个艰难的单
身母亲。除了流浪汉，我是当代英国最穷的人之一，真的一无所有。当年父母和我自己对未
来的担忧，现在都变成了现实。按照惯常的标准来看，我也是我所知道的最失败的人。 now,
i am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. that period of my life
was a dark one, and i had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since
represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. i had no idea how far the tunnel
extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a
reality.
现在，我不打算站在这里告诉你们，失败是有趣的。那段日子是我生命中的黑暗岁月，
我不知道它是否代表童话故事里需要历经的磨难，更不知道自己还要在黑暗中走多久。很长
一段时间里，前面留给我的只是希望，而不是现实。
so why do i talk about the benefits of failure? simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. i stopped pretending to myself that i was anything other than what i was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing
the only work that mattered to me. had i really succeeded at anything else, i might
never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena i believed i truly
belonged. i was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and
i was still alive, and i still had a daughter whom i adored, and i had an old typewriter
and a big idea. and so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which i rebuilt
my life.
那么为什么我要谈论失败的好处呢？因为失败意味着剥离掉那些不必要的东西。我因此
不再伪装自己、远离自我，而重新开始把所有精力放在对我最重要的事情上。如果不是没有
在其他领域成功过，我可能就不会找到，在一个我确信真正属于的舞台上取得成功的决心。
我获得了自由，因为最害怕的虽然已经发生了，但我还活着，我仍然有一个我深爱的女儿，
我还有一个旧打字机和一个很大的想法。所以困境的谷底，成为我重建生活的坚实基础。 you
might never fail on the scale i did, but some failure in life is inevitable. it is
impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that
you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
你们可能永远没有达到我经历的那种失败程度，但有些失败，在生活中是不可避免的。
生活不可能没有一点失败，除非你生活的万般小心，而那也意味着你没有真正在生活了。无
论怎样，有些失败还是注定地要发生。
failure gave me an inner security that i had never attained by passing examinations. failure taught me things about myself that i could have learned
no other way. i discovered that i had a strong will, and more disciplined than i had
suspected; i also found out that i had friends whose value was truly above the price
of rubies.
失败使我的内心产生一种安全感，这是我从考试中没有得到过的。失败让我看清自己，
这也是我通过其他方式无法体会的。我发现，我比自己认为的，要有更强的意志和决心。我
还发现，我拥有比宝石更加珍贵的朋友。
the knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that
you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. you will never truly know
yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by
adversity. such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it
has been worth more to me than any qualification i ever earned.
从挫折中获得智慧、变得坚强，意味着你比以往任何时候都更有能力生存。只有在逆境
来临的时候，你才会真正认识你自己，了解身边的人。
2008年jk罗琳哈佛毕业典礼演讲（中英文对照）默认分类 2009-07-17 20:13 阅读1281 评论0 字号：大中小 “2008年6月5日是哈佛大学的毕业典礼，请来的演讲嘉宾是《哈利波特》的作者j.k. 罗琳女士。她的演讲题目是《失败的好处和想象的重要性》（the fringe benefits of failure, and the importance of imaginatio n）。我读了一遍讲稿，觉得很好，很感染人。 她几乎没有谈到哈里波特，而是说了年轻时的一些经历。虽然j·k· 罗琳现在很有钱，是英国仅次于女皇的最富有的女人，但是她曾经有一段非常艰辛的日 子，30岁了，还差点流落街头。她主要谈的是，自己从 这段经历中学到的东西。” 以下是英文文稿和中文翻译： text as delivered follows. copyright of jk rowling, june 2008 president faust, members of the harvard corporation and the board of overseers, members of the faculty, proud parent s, and, above all, graduates. the first thing i would like to say is ?thank you.? not only he world?s largest gryffindor reunion. k. achievable goals: the first step to self improvement. actually, i have wracked my mind and heart for what i ought to say to you today. i have asked myself what i wish i had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons i have learned in the 21 years that have expired between tha t day and this. agination. these may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but plea se bear with me. hose closest to me expected of me. i was convinced that the only thing i wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. however, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. i know that the irony strikes with t he force of a cartoon anvil, now. d off down th e classics corridor. i cannot remember telling my parents that i was studying classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. of all the subjects on this planet, i think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an exec utive bathroom. i would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that i do not blame my parents for their point of view. there is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. what is more, i cannot criticise my parents for hoping
哈佛大学毕业典礼演讲稿——人生唯一目标是做自己奥普拉·温弗瑞：美国著名脱口秀主持人、媒体企业家。 奥普拉在哈佛大学2013届毕业典礼的演讲——人生唯一目标是做自己 我要分享的想法是：无论你有多么成功，也许你们会不断追求更高的目标，这就难免会遇到失意之时。我希望届时各位可以记住：世上并不存在失败，那不过是生活试图将我们推向另一个方向罢了。 当你身处困境时，看起来是一种失败。在过去的一年中，我时刻提醒自己牢记这一点。当深陷困境时，感到难过是正常的，给自己一点时间去思考即将失去的一切。关键在于：要从错误中汲取教训，因为所有经验，尤其是你犯下的错误，都将帮助你、推动你更好地做自己，确定下一步何去何从。生活的关键在于建立起一个内在的道德情感导航仪，为你指明方向。因为从今以后，当你用谷歌搜索自己的时候，搜索结果中会提到：“哈佛大学2013毕业生”。在这个充满竞争的世界，这的确是一张抢眼的名片。 我曾招聘过很多人，而每当我看到哈佛大学这个字眼时，我总是会坐直一些说：“他 们在哪?把他们统统带过来。”正是这张抢眼的名片可以成就你们的未来之路。你们可能成 为律师、议员、首席执行官、科学家、物理学家、诺贝尔奖及普利策奖得主，甚至深夜脱口秀节目主持人。但生活的挑战在于创建一份不仅陈述所期望的职位的履历，而且上面要明确成就怎样的自我。这份履历不仅需要表达你想成就一番怎样的事业，也要明确动机，除了头衔与职位，也要有达成目标的缘由。你的使命是什么?你的信仰是什么?你的目标是 什么?只有这样，当你不慎跌倒发现自深陷困境之时，才能帮助你重振旗鼓。 我是在1994年才认识到这一点的。那年我采访了一位凭一己之力积攒了1000美元 零花钱的小女孩，她将这钱捐出来帮助有需要的人。这个九岁大的小女孩促使我思考，仅凭一个存钱罐与雄心壮志就能做到这样，那我可以做些什么呢?于是我号召我的观众们捐 出他们的零钱，在一个月内，仅仅是一枚枚零钱硬币就募到了300万美金。我们用这笔 钱资助每个州的一位学子进入大学的殿堂。我所做的仅仅是号召我的观众，“尽己所能， 无论地域与地位，如果可能，请贡献出你们的时间、智慧与财力。无论你在哪里，请为他人送去自己的仁爱之心。”观众也用行动表明了一切。我们在12个不同的城镇建起了55 所学校，修缮了300栋被“丽塔”飓风和“卡特里娜”飓风摧毁的民宅。 创办“天使网络”的想法在我心中萦绕已久，也正是“天使网络”让我确定了心中的那个 导航仪。我决定不再单一地制作电视节目，还要关注节目的终极理念、采访对象、行业发展和慈善事业等等。无论我们追求什么，将我们团结在一起的信念胜过其他一切。作为一个19岁就出现在电视节目中的孩子，起初我并不明白这个道理，直到1994年才有所醒
The Spider’s Bite When I was in middle school, a poisonous spider bit my right hand. I ran to my mom for help—but instead of taking me to a doctor, my mom set my hand on fire.After wrapping my hand with several layers of cotton, then soaking it in wine, she put a chopstick into my mouth,and ignited the cotton. 在我上中学的时候，一只有毒蜘蛛咬伤了我的右手，我去找母亲帮忙，但是她没有找医生，却把我的手放在火上面。她用酒浸过的棉纱绕着我的手缠了好几层之后，在我的嘴里放了一根筷子，然后点燃了棉纱。 【语言点解析】 Poisonous表示有毒的；恶毒的；讨厌的。例句：A lot of poisonous waste water comes from that chemical factory. 那个化工厂排出大量有毒的废水。 Heat quickly penetrated the cotton and began to roast my hand. The searing pain made me want to scream, but the chopstick prevented it. All I could do was watch my hand burn - one minute, then two minutes –until mom put out the fire. 棉纱上的温度很快上来了，我的手也开始发烫。这股灼痛让我想要大叫，不过我嘴里含着的筷子让我叫不出来。我唯一能做的就是看着我的手骨，一分钟过去了，两分钟过去了，直到母亲熄灭火。 You see, the part of China I grew up in was a rural village, and at that time pre-industrial. When I was born, my village had no cars, no telephones, no electricity, not even running water. And we certainly didn’t have access to modern medical resources. 所以你看到，我是在中国的一个小山村里成长的，在那个时候，并不发达。在我出生的那个年代，我们村没车、没电话、也没电，甚至都没有自来水！且理所当然地，我没有接触现代医疗资源的办法。 There was no doctor my mother could bring me to see about my spider bite.For those who study biology, you may have grasped the science behind my mom’s cure: heat deactivates proteins, and a spider’s venom is simply a form of protein. It’s cool how that folk remedy actually incorporates basic biochemistry, isn’t it? 当我被蜘蛛咬伤时，并没有医生可以来治疗我。对于学生物学的人来说，你也许能找到我母亲治愈背后所包含的科学原理：热量能够让蛋白质失活，而蜘蛛的毒液都是蛋白质组成的。将这个土方子和生物化学基础联系起来很神奇，不是吗？ 【语言点解析】 Folk remedy表示偏方。例句：The active component, willow bark, was used as a folk remedy as long ago as the 5th century BC. 它来自早在公元前五世纪就被用于民间配方的柳树皮，是这种树皮的一种有效成分。 But I am a PhD student in biochemistry at Harvard, I now know that better, less painful and less risky treatments existed. So I can’t help but ask myself, why I didn’t receive one at the time? 不过我现在是一个在哈佛学习生物化学的博士生，我现在知道了一个更好的、不那么痛、危险系数更小的治疗方法。所以，我忍不住问我自己，为什么那个时候我不能接受更好的治疗吗？
President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates, 福斯特主席，哈佛公司和监察委员会的各位成员，各位老师、家长、全体毕业生们：The first thing I would like to say is "thank you." Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindors' reunion. 首先请允许我说一声谢谢。哈佛不仅给了我无上的荣誉，连日来为这个演讲经受的恐惧和紧张，更令我减肥成功。这真是一个双赢的局面。现在我要做的就是深呼吸几下，眯着眼睛看看前面的大红横幅，安慰自己正在世界上最大的格兰芬多。Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard. 发表毕业演说是一个巨大的责任，至少在我回忆自己当年的毕业典礼前是这么认为的。那天做演讲的是英国著名的哲学家Baroness Mary Warnock，对她演讲的回忆，对我写今天的演讲稿，产生了极大的帮助，因为我不记得她说过的任何一句话了。这个发现让我释然，让我不再担心我可能会无意中影响你放弃在商业，法律或政治上的大好前途，转而醉心于成为一个快乐的魔法师（gay有快乐和同性恋的意思）。You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals - the first step to self-improvement. honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindors' reunion. 首先请允许我说一声谢谢。哈佛不仅给了我无上的荣誉，连日来为这个演讲经受的恐惧和紧张，更令我减肥成功。这真是一个双赢的局面。现在我要做的就是深呼吸几下，眯着眼睛看看前面的大红横幅，安慰自己正在世界上最大的格兰芬多（沪江小编：以防有人没看过《哈利波特》……格兰芬多是小哈利所在的魔法学院的名字）聚会上。 Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard. 发表毕业演说是一个巨大的责任，至少在我回忆自己当年的毕业典礼前是这么认为的。那天做演讲的是英国著名的哲学家Baroness Mary Warnock，对她演讲的回忆，对我写今天的演讲稿，产生了极大的帮助，因为我不记得她说过的任何一句话了。这个发现让我释然，让我不再担心我可能会无意中影响你放弃在商业，法律或政治上的大好前途，转而醉心于成为一个快乐的魔法师（gay有快乐和同性恋的意思）。You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals - the first step to self-improvement.
奥普拉哈佛毕业典礼演讲：人生唯一目标就是做真实的自己 oh my goodness! im at haaaaaarvard! thats how oprah winfrey began her speech at harvard university graduation ceremony—in her spirited, signature way. winfrey also received an honorary doctor of law degree from the university before taking to the podium. 温弗瑞演讲中4条最励志的语录 谈失败的好处 there is no such thing as failure. failure is just life trying to move us in another direction. 世间并不存在“失败”，那不过是生活想让我们换个方向走走罢了。 learn from every mistake, because every experience, particularly your mistakes, are there to teach you and force you into being more who you are. 要 从错误中吸取教训，因为你的每一次经历、尤其是你犯下的错误，都将帮助你、推动你更好 地做自己。 2. on her own biggest personal failure. 谈自身最大的失败 我突然想到某首古老赞美诗中的一句话：“困难只是暂时的”，我遇到的麻烦同样会有结 束的一天。然后我想，我会将这一页翻过去，我会好起来的。 谈职业生涯所做访谈的共同性 beyonce in all her beyonce-ness ... they all want to know: was that okay? did you hear me? did you see me? did what i said mean anything to you? 我发现，我所有的访谈有一个共同性，那就是人人都希望自己被认可、被理解。 they all want to know: was that okay? did you hear me? did you see me? did what i said mean anything to you? 我的采访对象都想知道：“我的表现ok吗？你听到我看到我吗？我说的话对你有价值 吗？” 4. on the key to success and happiness. 谈成功和快乐的关键 you will find true success and happiness if you have only one goal. there really is only one, and that is this: to fulfill the highest, most truthful expression of yourself as a human being. 如果你只认准一个目标，那你就能获得真正的成功和快乐。人生确实只有一个目标，那 就是：最大程度地、最真实地展现自己。 “不要问自己世界需要什么，问问是什么让你精神抖擞地活着，然后就去做，因为世界 所需要的就是一个个朝气蓬勃的人。”篇二：奥普拉哈佛毕业典礼演讲 奥普拉哈佛毕业典礼演讲：人生唯一目标就是做真实的自己 oprah winfrey: oh my goodness! im at harvard! wow! to president faust, my fellow honorands, carl that was so beautiful, thank you so much, and james rothenberg, stephanie wilson, harvard faculty with a special bow to my friend dr. henry lewis gates. oprah winfrey: all of you alumni with a special bow to the class of 88, your hundred fifteen million dollars. oprah winfrey: and to you, members of the harvard class of 2013! hello! oprah winfrey: and we understand that most americans believe in a clear path to citizenship for the 12,000,000 undocumented immigrants who reside in this country
哈佛校长2016年毕业典礼演讲 Greetings, alumni, graduates, families, and friends. It is such a pleasure to see you all he re and offercongratulations on this day of celebration. I am in the unenviable role of war m-up act for one ofthe greatest storytellers of our - or any other - time. Nevertheless, m y assignment is to offer a fewreflections on this magnificent institution at this moment in its history. And what a moment it is! From comments of astonished pundits on television, in print, and online, to conversations withbewildered friends and colleagues, the question seems unavoidable and mesmerizin g: What is goingon? What is happening to the world? The tumultuous state of American politics, spotlighted in thiscontentious presidential contest; the political challenges around the globe from Brazil to Brexit; theMiddle East in flames; a refugee crisis in Europe; terr orists exploiting new media to perform chillingacts of brutality and murder; climate-relate d famine in Africa and fires in Canada. It is as if we arebeing visited by the horsemen of t he apocalypse with war, famine, natural disaster and, yes, evenpestilence - as Zika sprea ds, aided by political controversy and paralysis. As extraordinary as these times may seem to us, Harvard reminds us we have been here before. Itis in some ways reassuring at this 365th Commencement to recall all that Harv ard has enduredover centuries. A number of these festival rites took place under clouds of war; others in times offinancial crisis and despair; still others in face of epidemics - fro m smallpox in the 17th century tothe devastating flu of 1918 to the H1N1 virus just a fe w years ago. Harvard has not just survivedthese challenges, but has helped to confront t hem. We sing in our alma mater about "Calm risingthrough change and through storm." What does that mean for today's crises? Where douniversities fit in this threatening mix? What can we do? What should we do? What must we do? We are gathered today in Tercentenary Theatre, with Widener Library and Memorial Chu rchstanding before and behind us, enduring symbols of Harvard's larger identity and pur poses,testaments to what universities do and believe at a time when we have never nee ded them more.And much is at stake, for us and for the world. We look at Widener Library and see a great edifice, a backdrop of giant columns where p hotos aretaken and 27 steps are worn down ever so slightly by the feet of a century of st udents andscholars. We also see a repository of learning, with 57 miles of shelving at the heart of a librarysystem of some 17 million books, a monument to reason and knowledg e, to the collection andpreservation of the widest possible range of beliefs, and experienc es, and facts that fuel free inquiryand our constantly evolving understanding. A vehicle fo r Veritas - for exploring the path to truthwherever it may lead. A tribute to the belief that knowledge matters, that facts matter - in thepresent moment, as a basis for the informe
比尔盖茨在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲稿（英） 2011-06-19 00:47:16 标签：比尔盖茨休闲演讲比尔盖茨哈佛演讲生活 From:https://www.doczj.com/doc/0b3083122.html,/fllw/089262235563199.html President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, parents, and especially, the graduates: I've been waiting more than 30 years to say this: Dad, I always told you I'd come back and get my degree. I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I'll be changing my job next year ... and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume. I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, I'm just happy that the Crimson has called me Harvard's most successful dropout. I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class ... I did the best of everyone who failed.
The Benefits of JK Rowling at Harvard 1 2008年J.K.罗琳在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲:失败的好处和想象力的重要 性 The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination Harvard University Commencement Address J.K. Rowling Tercentenary Theatre, June 5, 2008 失败的好处和想象力的重要性 哈佛大学毕业典礼 J.K. 罗琳 2008年6月5日Video of J K Rowling's Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association on June 5th 2008. In this powerful, moving, yet also funny speech Jo talks about her time working for Amnesty International, her personal experiences with failure and the power of the imagination to allow us to empathize with others. President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates,
人生唯一目标是做自己-哈佛大学2013届毕业典礼演讲 人生唯一目标是做自己 ——奥普拉在哈佛大学2013届毕业典礼上的演讲 我要分享的想法是：无论你有多么成功，也许你们会不断追求更高的目标，这就难免会遇到失意之时。我希望届时各位可以记住：世上并不存在失败，那不过是生活试图将我们推向另一个方向罢了。 当你身处困境时，看起来是一种失败。在过去的一年中，我时刻提醒自己牢记这一点。当深陷困境时，感到难过是正常的，给自己一点时间去思考即将失去的一切。关键在于：要从错误中汲取教训，因为所有经验，尤其是你犯下的错误，都将帮助你、推动你更好地做自己，确定下一步何去何从。生活的关键在于建立起一个内在的道德情感导航仪，为你指明方向。因为从今以后，当你用谷歌搜索自己的时候，搜索结果中会提到：“哈佛大学2013毕业生”。在这个充满竞争的世界，这的确是一张抢眼的名片。 我曾招聘过很多人，而每当我看到哈佛大学这个字眼时，我总是会坐直一些
说：“他们在哪？把他们统统带过来。”正是这张抢眼的名片可以成就你们的未来之路。你们可能成为律师、议员、首席执行官、科学家、物理学家、诺贝尔奖及普利策奖得主，甚至深夜脱口秀节目主持人。但生活的挑战在于创建一份不仅陈述所期望的职位的履历，而且上面要明确成就怎样的自我。这份履历不仅需要表达你想成就一番怎样的事业，也要明确动机，除了头衔与职位，也要有达成目标的缘由。你的使命是什么？你的信仰是什么？你的目标是什么？只有这样，当你不慎跌倒发现自深陷困境之时，才能帮助你重振旗鼓。 我是在1994年才认识到这一点的。那年我采访了一位凭一己之力积攒了1000美元零花钱的小女孩，她将这钱捐出来帮助有需要的人。这个九岁大的小女孩促使我思考，仅凭一个存钱罐与雄心壮志就能做到这样，那我可以做些什么呢？于是我号召我的观众们捐出他们的零钱，在一个月内，仅仅是一枚枚零钱硬币就募到了300万美金。我们用这笔钱资助每个州的一位学子进入大学的殿堂。我所做的仅仅是号召我的观众，“尽己所能，无论地域与地位，如果可能，请贡献出你们的时间、智慧与财力。无论你在哪里，请为他人送去自己的仁爱之心。”观众也用行动表明了一切。我们在12个不同的城镇建起了55所学校，修缮了
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places. Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise. And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know. I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid. What is more, those who choose not to empathize may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy. One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing. But how much more a re you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden. If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better. I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for l ife. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I’ve used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister. So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom: