演讲稿

Thank you very much to thee. Thank you. It's a...So: after over 100 years of Class Days, finally you get a British speaker.
谢谢你们，谢谢你们。这...100多年过去了，你们终于迎来了一位英国演讲者。

What took you so long? Did that little disagreement of 1776 really rankle so much? And why now? Is it because British election campaigns only last four weeks?
是什么让你们等了这么长时间？难道是因为1776年那次小小分歧而耿耿于怀？那为什么又选择现在呢？难道是因为英国的大选仅仅持续了四个星期？无论出于何种原因，能来到这里让我倍感荣幸。

For whatever reason, it is an honour to be here and to say to the Yale College Class of 2008: you did it; you came through; from all of us to you: congratulations.
耶鲁大学2008届的毕业生们，我想对你们说：你们顺利完成了学业，你们去的了成功，我们大家都要恭喜你们，你们干得非常好。

The invitation to a former British Prime Minister to address a college which boasts five former Presidents, many former Vice Presidents and Senators too numerous to mention, is either to give me an exaggerated sense of my own importance or you a reduced sense of yours.

贵校培养出了5位美国总统、很多副总统和难以数计的参议院，却邀请一位前英国首相来发表演讲，这要么是夸大了我的重要性，要么就是减小了你们的重要性。

It was Churchill or Oscar Wilde—and there is a difference—who called us two nations divided by a common language and so we are.

是丘吉尔还是奥斯卡•王尔德——这两人当然是有区别的——把英美两国说成是由一种相同的语言划分的两个不同的国家，你们可以从我今天的出场来判断这一点，事实确实如此。

Here I am at Yale and set to come back for the fall semester. My old Oxford tutor was, I'm afraid, horrified to hear I had been taken on by Yale. His worries were all for Yale I may say. He said: "I only hope for their sake you are going there to learn rather than teach."
现在我来到耶鲁，并打算今年秋天来这里任职。我恐怕，我在牛津的老导师听到我在耶鲁任职会感到惊骇。我可以说，他的担忧全是为了耶鲁。他说：“为了耶鲁，我只希望你是去那儿学习，而不是教书。”

背景资料

背景资料：
美国前首相布莱尔2008年5月在美国耶鲁大学演讲，他在演讲中呼吁与中印两国建立合作伙伴关系。布莱尔还表示，台下毕业生将面对气候转变，粮食短缺，人口增长和涉及宗教的恐怖主义等国际议题，呼吁他们要追求有意义的人生。他还号召毕业生要做一个实干家而不是评论家，要勇于承担责任，要时刻准备迎接新的生活，不断思考，积极行动。

Be prepared to fail as well as to succeed, because it is failure not success that de?nes character.
不仅要接受成功，也要准备经历失败。因为是失败而非成功塑造了性格。