And that's not so bad. Embedded in all of the major religions are profound truths. Schopenhauer, who despised belief in transcendent things, nonetheless thought Christianity to be of inexpressible worth. He couldn't believe in the divinity of Jesus, or in the afterlife, but to Schopenhauer, a religion that had as its central emblem the figure of a man being tortured on a cross couldn't be entirely misleading.
而这样并没有坏处，各大宗教都蕴含着深刻的真理。叔本华虽然不相信超然事物，却承认基督教有着道不明的价值。他不相信耶稣的神性，也不相信来生，但是叔本华认为以一位男性形象钉在十字架上受难为中心标志的宗教不会是完全误导性的。
One does not need to be a Schopenhauer to understand the use of religion, even if one does not believe in an otherworldly god. And all of those teachers and counselors and friends—and the uncles and aunts, the fathers and mothers with their hopes for your fulfillment—or their fulfillment in you—should not necessarily be cast aside or ignored. Families have their wisdom.
—个人就算不相信超俗的神明，也不需要像叔本华耶样犀利地明白宗教的用途。所有的那些老师、辅导员和朋友——以及(乐于预言的)叔叔和（犹豫不决的）婶婶，那些（抱着热切期望的）父母们，希望你们能实现自己的理想，或者希望你们能为他们实现当初没能实现的理想——没有必要对他们的想法弃之不顾或是置之不理。家族有家族的智慧。
The major conservative thinkers have always been very serious about what goes by the name of common sense. Edmund Burke saw common sense as a loosely made, but often profound, collective work in which humanity has deposited its hard-earned wisdom—the precipitate of joy and tears—over time. You have been raised in proximity to common sense, if you've been raised at all, and common sense is something to respect, though not quite—peace unto the formidable Burke—to revere.
大保守思想家对什么是常识总是非常严肃。埃德蒙·伯克认为常识是松散的，但常是深刻的群体性成果，是随着时间推移人类得来不易的智慧——欢乐与泪水——的沉淀。如果你们受到过家庭教育，这些教育相当于常识教育，常识是一种应该尊重的东西，不过不该向它顶礼膜拜。
You may be all that the good people who raised you say you are; you may want all they have shown you is worth wanting; you may be someone who is truly your father's son or your mother's daughter. But then again, you may not be.
你们可能会成为抚养你们长大的好人们所期望的那种人；你们可能追求所有他们告诉你们值得追求的东西；你们可能成为真正的父亲的好儿子或是母亲的好女儿。不过，话说回来，你们可能并不会。
For the power that is in you, as Emerson suggested, may be new in nature. You may not be the person that your parents take you to be. And—this thought is both more exciting and more dangerous—you may not be the person that you take yourself to be, either. You may not have read yourself right, and college is the place where you can find out whether you have or not. The reason to read Blake and Dickinson and Freud and Dickens is not to become more cultivated, or more articulate, or to be someone who, at a cocktail party, is never embarrassed (or who can embarrass others). The best reason to read them is to see if they may know you better than you know yourself. You may find your own suppressed and rejected thoughts flowing back to you with an "alienated majesty." Reading the great writers, you may have the experience that Longinus associated with the sublime: You feel that you have actually created the text yourself. For somehow your predecessors are more yourself than you are.
正如爱默生所说，你们所拥有的力量可能本质上是全新的，你们可能不会成为父母眼中的样子， 而且——另外一个想法更加刺激也更加危险——那就是你们也可能不会成为自己眼中的自己。你们可能并不了解自己，而大学就是你们正确解读自己的地方。阅读布莱克、狄金森、弗洛伊德和狄更斯的作品不是为了更加有文化，也不是为了更加有口才，不是为了成为那个在鸡尾酒会上从不难堪的人(或让别人难堪的人）。阅读他们的作品最好的理由是看看他们是否比你们更了解你们自己。你们可能会发现自己曾遭到压制和排斥的思想现在有点像“遭贬国王”那样庄严回朝。阅读伟大作家的作品可以让你们体验宏伟壮丽的朗基努斯神迹：你们会觉得真正创造文本的人是你们自己，不知为何，前人比你们更像你们自己。