評論
打印
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，父母這樣做是希望我不會過窮日子，所以我不能責怪他們。他們經歷了貧窮，我后來也一度貧窮，所以我很理解他們，因為貧窮并不是一種高貴的經歷。貧窮會讓人感覺恐懼、有壓力，有時甚至讓人感覺沮喪。貧窮意味著說不盡的羞辱和艱辛。靠自己的努力擺脫貧窮值得自豪，只有傻瓜才會將貧窮浪漫化。
What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
像你們這么大時我最害怕的不是貧窮，而是失敗。
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.
像你們這么大時，盡管我明顯缺乏在大學學習的動力，花大量時間在咖啡館寫小說，用于聽課的時間很少，但我卻有通過考試的本領。多年來，考試一直是衡量我和同齡人成功的標準。
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.
我不會笨到因為你們年輕、有才華并且受過良好的教育，就認為你們從來沒有經受過困難或心碎的時刻。才華和指揮并不能使人擺脫命運的反復無常；我從來沒有認為在座的每一個人一直以來都享有優越和滿足。
However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure.
然而，即將從哈弗畢業這一事實就意味著你們很少會經歷失敗。
