就职演讲

It is in this spirit and with this thought that we have grown more and more aware,
基于这种精神和这种思想，我们日益明确地感到，
more and more certain that the part we wished to play was the part of those who mean to vindicate and fortify peace.
以前我们所希望充当的，乃是那些有意于维护与巩固和平的人们所扮演的角色。
We have been obliged to arm ourselves to make good our claim to a certain minimum of right and of freedom of action.
我们迫不得已，只有武装自己，以求实现我们对某种最低限度的权利和行动自由所提出的要求。
We stand firm in armed neutrality since it seems that in no other way we can demonstrate what it is we insist upon and cannot forget.
看来，我们似乎没有其他什么途径能够表明，我们所坚持和难以忘怀的东西乃为何物，
We may even be drawn on, by circumstances, not by our own purpose or desire,
既然如此，我们就只有坚定不移地保持武装中立，我们甚至有可能为形势所迫，
to a more active assertion of our rights as we see them and a more immediate association with the great struggle itself.
不得不更加积极地维护我们自己所理解的权利，更加直接地卷入这场重大的斗争。
But nothing will alter our thought or our purpose. They are too clear to be obscured.
这当然决非我们的本意和愿望。但是，任何东西都不能改变我们的想法和目标。我们的想法和目标甚为清楚，不会遭到遮蔽；
They are too deeply rooted in the principles of our national life to be altered.
它们深深地植根于我们国民生活的各项原则之中，因而不会被改变。
We desire neither conquest nor advantage. We wish nothing that can be had only at the cost of another people.
我们既无意进行征服，也不想从中渔利。对于任何只有牺牲他国人民的利益才能获得的东西，我们都毫无兴趣。
We always professed unselfish purpose and we covet the opportunity to prove our professions are sincere.
我们向来表白自己无意于自私自利，我们也渴望得到机会来证明我们的表白确实具有诚意。
There are many things still to be done at home, to clarify our own politics and add new vitality to the industrial processes of our own life,
在国内，我们还有许多事情要去做。我们需要净化我们自己的政治生活，为我们的工业生活补充新的活力。
and we shall do them as time and opportunity serve, but we realize that the greatest things that remain to be done must be done
只要有适宜的时机我们就要进行这些工作。我们也认识到，那些有待完成的最重大的事情，
with the whole world for stage and in cooperation with the wide and universal forces of mankind, and we are making our spirits ready for those things.
必须以整个世界为舞台，在全人类各种力量的合作之下才能完成。目前我们正在为这些事情作好精神准备。
We are provincials no longer.
我们不再是地方性的居民。
The tragic events of the thirty months of vital turmoil through which we have just passed have made us citizens of the world.
我们刚刚经历的为时三十个月的巨大动荡中所发生的种种悲剧性事件，已经使我们成为世界性的公民。
There can be no turning back. Our own fortunes as a nation are involved whether we would have it so or not.
开弓已无回头箭，我们作为一个国家的运气，取决于我们自己要把它变成一个什么样的国家。
And yet we are not the less Americans on that account.
不过，即便如此，我们也不会变得不像美国人。
We shall be the more American if we but remain true to the principles in which we have been bred.
只要我们仍然忠实于滋养我们成长的各项原则，我们就会更像美国人。
They are not the principles of a province or of a single continent.
这些原则并非仅只属于某个地区或某个大陆，
We have known and boasted all along that they were the principles of a liberated mankind.
我们向来都知道并始终引以为荣的是，这些原则属于获得了自由的整个人类。
These, therefore, are the things we shall stand for, whether in war or in peace:
因此，无论是战时还是和平时期，我们都要坚持下述原则。
That all nations are equally interested in the peace of the world and in the political stability of free peoples, and equally responsible for their maintenance;
所有国家都对世界的和平与各自由民族的政治稳定拥有同等的利益，都同样有责任对这两者加以维护；
总统介绍

少年时代就醉心于政治，三度出任英国首相的威廉·尤尔特·格莱斯顿是他心目中崇拜的英雄。威尔逊16岁进入戴维森学院，29岁获博士学位，30岁开始在大学任教。1902年发表的《美国人民史》被认为是其学术上的最高成就。