演讲原文

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.

再者，父母这样做是希望我不会过穷日子，所以我不能责怪他们。他们经历了贫穷，我后来也一度贫穷，所以我很理解他们，因为贫穷并不是一种高贵的经历。贫穷会让人感觉恐惧、有压力，有时甚至让人感觉沮丧。贫穷意味着说不尽的羞辱和艰辛。靠自己的努力摆脱贫穷值得自豪，只有傻瓜才会将贫穷浪漫化。

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

像你们这么大时我最害怕的不是贫穷，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.

像你们这么大时，尽管我明显缺乏在大学学习的动力，花大量时间在咖啡馆写小说，用于听课的时间很少，但我却有通过考试的本领。多年来，考试一直是衡量我和同龄人成功的标准。

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.

我不会笨到因为你们年轻、有才华并且受过良好的教育，就认为你们从来没有经受过困难或心碎的时刻。才华和指挥并不能使人摆脱命运的反复无常；我从来没有认为在座的每一个人一直以来都享有优越和满足。

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure.

然而，即将从哈弗毕业这一事实就意味着你们很少会经历失败。

热词空间

ennobling
adj. 高贵的
eg. In some ways it was an ennobling influence.
在某些方面，这起到了圣洁的作用。

entail
vt. 引起
eg. Success entails hard work.
要成功，必须努力工作。

humiliation
n. 耻辱
eg. We have suffered 30 years of humiliation and torture.
我们已经遭受了30年的羞辱和折磨。

romanticise
vt. 使浪漫化
eg. Unlike many in the development world, she does not romanticise poverty or patronise the poor.
不像发展界中的许多人，她从不把贫穷浪漫化，也不对穷人盛气凌人。

distinct
adj. 明显的
eg. Looking at a close-up of the temperature spike, we see distinct troughs right next to the spike.
观察对温度尖峰的特写，我们可以看到恰好在尖峰附近有一个明显的波谷。

have a knack for
有......的诀窍
eg. You have a knack for doing the right thing at the right time.
你有种天分，让你在适当的时机，做适当的事情。

inoculate
vt. 给......注射预防针
eg. The main cause of measles was failure to inoculate measles vaccine for children.
未接种麻疹疫苗是造成儿童发病的主要原因。

caprice
n. 反复无常
eg. Her decision to wear only black clothes was pure caprice.
她决定只穿黑衣服完全是忽发奇想。

unruffled
adj. 平静的
eg. He remained unruffled by the charges.
他受到这些指控仍处之泰然。