第一篇：J.K.罗琳谈失败的额外收益(双语)
Topic: The Benefits of Failure
Questions for reference: 1.Most people hate failure, what do you think of it? 2.Have you ever failed in something? If yes, think about what you have got from your failure.3.What is the right attitude toward failure?
You may get some ideas from the two passages below.What is success? Some people seem to sail easily through life, overcoming every obstacle they encounter with ease.Then there are those who manage to avoid most difficulties, by limiting their experience to what‟s familiar and easy, and never trying anything new.Are these people successful? The texts you’re going to read takes a different approach to success and failure.J.K.Rowling Talks about the 1)Fringe Benefits of Failure
J.K.罗琳谈失败的额外收益
英式发音 适合精听 听2说1读3写3词
2这是J.K.罗琳在哈佛大学2008年毕业典礼上的演讲。这位全球最著名的当代魔幻小说家在台上讲述的是其亲身经历的故事，同时也是几经磨难、走出黑暗日子后发自内心的感慨。她曾同时经受感情与经济的双重打击；她说，在座的高材生们大抵不会经历像她那般的巨大失败，但漫漫人生，偶然的失败无可避免。失恋、考试落败、比赛落选„„有人因失败一蹶不振，有人奋而再起，罗琳是后者的榜样。
伴读小Tips：
尽管后面讲到的都是严肃的话题，但一个幽默的开场白必不可少，一来缓解演讲者的紧张情绪，二来能迅速抓住听众的注意力并获得好感。罗琳的演讲有着与政客演讲完全不一样的风格，没有慷慨激昂的论调，但却带着作家的平实、儒雅，请仔细品味。
President Faust, members of the Harvard 2)Corporation and the Board of 3)Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.The first thing I would like to say is “thank you.” Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and 4)nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this 5)commencement address have made me lose weight.A win-win situation!Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, 6)squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world‟s largest 7)Gryffindor reunion.Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today.I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure.Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels.However, my parents, both of whom came from 8)impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal 9)quirk that could never pay a 10)mortgage, or secure a 11)pension.I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics;they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day.I would like to make it clear, in 12)parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view.There is an 13)expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction;the moment you are old enough to 14)take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.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 15)ennobling experience.Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun.That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale 16)resolution.So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the 17)inessential.I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena where I believed I truly belonged.I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea.And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way.I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected;I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive.Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone‟s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its 18)vicissitudes.浮士德主席，哈佛大学校务委员会和监察委员会的各位成员，全体教员，自豪的父母们，最重要的，还有今天的主角——所有的毕业生们。首先我想说的是“谢谢”。哈佛不仅给了我非比寻常的荣誉，还赠予了我数周因要作毕业演讲而产生的恐惧和恶心，使得我因此减肥成功。好一个双赢的局面！现在我需要做的就是深呼吸，眯着眼睛看着红色的横幅，然后令自己相信正身处在世界上最大的格兰芬多学院聚会中。
其实，为了准备今天该讲的话，我已绞尽脑汁、费劲心思。我问自己，希望当年毕业时就该懂得的是什么，和由毕业那一天到此时的过去21年间所学到的重要教训。
在这美好的日子里，我们相聚一堂，庆祝你们学有所成，而我决定和你们谈谈失败的好处。
追溯到半载人生以前，我正在努力寻求自我内心追求与至亲对我的期望这两者间的一个难得的平衡。我当时深信自己唯一想做的事就是写小说。但是，我的父母都出身贫寒，也没有上过大学，他们认为我异常活跃的想象力是一个有趣的个人怪癖，但却绝不可用来支付房屋按揭或保证我得到一份退休金。我已不记得我有否告诉父母自己是在读古典文学专业，他们很可能是在我毕业那天才头一回发现的。
在此，我想顺带澄清一点，我并不责怪我父母的观点。埋怨父母给你导错航是有期限的；从你成长到能够自己做出决定的那一刻起，责任就要靠你们自己去承担了。再说，我不能因为父母希望我不再经受贫穷而去责怪他们。他们自己曾经历过穷日子，我也曾贫穷过，所以对于他们认为贫穷并不受景仰的观点，我十分认同。通过自己的努力摆脱贫困是值得引以为傲的事，只有傻瓜才会把贫穷本身浪漫化。
今天，我并不打算站在这里跟你们说失败是一件好玩的事。那段日子是我生命中的黑暗时期，我也不知道会出现后来媒体称为童话般的美满结局。
那我为何要谈失败的好处呢？很简单，因为失败意味着剥离一切多余的事物。我不再伪装自己，并开始把所有精力集中于完成唯一一件对我很重要的工作上。要是我在其它事情上曾获成功，我也许就永远不会有这样的决心，在深信真正属于自己的舞台上取得成功。我获得了自由，因为我最害怕的事情已经发生，而我还活着，还有一个可爱的女儿、一部旧打字机和一个宏大的梦想。我的谷底成为了重建生活的坚实基础。
失败给了我一种内心的安全感，是以前通过考试也没有的安全感。失败教我认识自己，舍此别无他法。我发现，自己有坚强的意志，自律性比我想象中更强；我还发现，我拥有一些比宝石更可贵的朋友。从挫折中获得的知识使你更明智更坚强，也就是说，你比以往任何时候更具备生存的能力。
生活是困难的、复杂的，并超出任何人的绝对控制；谦恭地明白这事实将助你度过人生的沧海桑田。翻译：Sylvia
1)fringe [frIndV] a.额外的。Fringe benefits 附加福利。2)corporation [7kC:pE5reIFEn] n.（大学的）校务委员会 3)overseer [5EJvE5si:E] n.督学；监工 4)nausea [5nC:sjE] n.反胃, 恶心
5)commencement [kE5mensmEnt] n.毕业典礼 6)squint [skwInt] v.半眯着眼睛看 7)Gryffindor 格兰芬多，《哈利．波特》系列中主人公就读的霍格沃茨魔法学校中四个学院之一。
8)impoverished [Im5pɒvErIFt] a.贫困的 9)quirk [kw:k] n.奇想；怪癖
10)mortgage [5mC:^IdV] n.抵押（借款）11)pension [5penFEn] n.养老金
12)parenthesis [pE5renWIsIs] n.插入语；附带
13)expiry date 有效期
14)take the wheel 掌控方向盘；主宰
15)ennoble [I5nEJbl] v.使高贵；使受尊敬 16)resolution [7rezE5lju:FEn] n.解决，结局 17)inessential [5InI5senFEl] a.无关紧要的
18)vicissitude [vI5sIsItju:d] n.变迁兴衰，常作复数。
Life Bar
Three Steps to Get Out from the Failure 三步走出失败的阴霾
（只要懂得拾起希望并付诸行动，没有人能阻止你前进的脚步！）
Step 1
别再怨天尤人
There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction.Step 2
肯定每一分回报
Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.Step 3
激起破釜沉舟的信心
Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.Turning Failure into Success
Fredelle Maynard Vicky — beautiful, talented, very bright, voted “Most Likely to Succeed” in college — got a promising job with a large company after graduation.Then, after two years without promotions, she was fired.She suffered a complete nervous breakdown.“It was panic,” she told me later.“Everything had always gone so well for me that I had no experience in coping with rejection.I felt I was a failure.” Vicky‟s reaction is an extreme example of a common phenomenon.2 Our society places so much emphasis on “making it” that we assume that any 1 failure is bad.What we don‟t always recognize is that what looks like failure may, in the long run, prove beneficial.When Vicky was able to think coolly about why she was fired, for example, she realized that she was simply not suited for a job dealing with people all the time.In her new position as a copy editor, she works independently, is happy and once again “successful.” People are generally prone to what language expert S.I.Hayakawa calls “the two-valued orientation”.We talk about seeing both sides of a question as if every question had only two sides.We assume that everyone is either a success or a failure when, in fact, infinite degrees of both are possible.As Hayakawa points out, there‟s a world of difference between “I have failed three times” and “I am a failure.” Indeed, the words failure and success cannot be reasonably applied to a complex, living, changing human being.They can only describe the situation at a particular time and place.4 Obviously no one can be brilliant at everything.In fact, success in one area often precludes success in another.A famous politician once told me that his career had practically destroyed his marriage.“I have no time for my family,” he explained.“I travel a lot.And even when I‟m home, I hardly see my wife and kids.I‟ve got power, money, prestige —
but as a husband and father, I‟m a flop.” Certain kinds of success can indeed be destructive.The danger of too early success is particularly acute.I recall from my childhood a girl whose skill on ice skates marked her as “Olympic material”.While the rest of us were playing, bicycling, reading and just loafing, this girl skated — every day after school and all weekend.Her picture often appeared in the papers, and the rest of us envied her glamorous life.Years later, however, she spoke bitterly of those early triumphs.“I never prepared myself for anything but the ice,” she said.“I peaked at 17 — and it‟s been downhill ever since.”
Success that comes too easily is also damaging.The child who wins a prize for a carelessly-written essay, the adult who distinguishes himself at a first job by lucky accident faces probable disappointment when real challenges arise.Success is also bad when it‟s achieved at the cost of the total quality of an experience.Successful students sometimes become so obsessed with grades that they never enjoy their school years.They never branch out into tempting new areas, because they don‟t want to risk their grade-point average.8
Why are so many people so afraid of failure? Simply because no one tells us how to fail so that failure becomes a growing experience.We forget that failure is part of the human condition and that “every person has the right to fail.” Most parents work hard at either preventing failure or shielding their children from the knowledge that they have failed.One way is to lower standards.A mother describes her child‟s hastily made table as “perfect!” even though it‟s clumsy and unsteady.Another way is to shift blame.If John fails math, his teacher is unfair or stupid.The trouble with failure-prevention devices is that they leave a child unequipped for life in the real world.The young need to learn that no one can be best at everything, no one can win all the time — and that it‟s possible to enjoy a game even when you don‟t win.A child who‟s not invited to a birthday party, who doesn‟t make the honor roll or the baseball team feels terrible, of course.But parents should not offer a quick consolation prize or say, “It doesn‟t matter,” because it does.The youngster should be allowed to experience disappointment — and then be helped to master it.11 Failure is never pleasant.It hurts adults and children alike.But it can make a positive contribution to your life once you learn to use it.Step one is to ask, “Why did I fail?” Resist the natural impulse to blame someone else.Ask yourself what you did wrong, how you can improve.If someone else can help, don‟t be shy about inquiring.12 When I was a teenager and failed to get a job I‟d counted on, I telephoned the interviewer to ask why.“Because you came ten minutes late,” I was told.“We can‟t afford employees who waste other people‟s time.” The explanation was reassuring(I hadn‟t been rejected as a person)and helpful, too.I don‟t think I‟ve been late for anything since.13 Success, which encourages repetition of old behavior, is not nearly as good a teacher as failure.You can learn from a disastrous party how to give a good one, from an ill-chosen first house what to look for in a second.Even a failure that seems total can prompt fresh thinking, a change of direction.14 A friend of mine, after 12 years of studying ballet, did not succeed in becoming a dancer.She was turned down by the ballet master, who said, “You will never be a dancer.You haven‟t the body for it.” In such cases, the way to use failure is to take stock courageously, asking, “What have I left? What else can I do?” My friend put away her toe shoes and moved into dance therapy, a field where she‟s both competent and useful.15
Though we may envy the assurance that comes with success, most of us are attracted by courage in defeat.There is what might be called the noble failure — the special heroism of aiming high, doing your best and then, when that proves not enough, moving bravely on.As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “A man‟s success is made up of failures, because he experiments and ventures every day, and the more falls he gets, moves faster on...I have heard that in horsemanship — a man will never be a good rider until he is thrown;then he will not be haunted any longer by the terror that he shall tumble, and will ride whither he is bound.”
Failure? No!Just Temporary Setbacks
Dottie Walters If you could come to my office in California to visit with me today, you would see that one side of the room is occupied by a beautiful old-fashioned soda fountain with nine leather-covered seats.Unusual? Yes.But if that soda fountain could speak, it would tell you a story about the day I almost lost hope and gave up.It was a recession period after World War II and jobs were scarce.My husband had purchased a small dry cleaning business with borrowed money.We had two darling babies, a tract house, a car and all the usual monthly payments.Then the bottom fell out.There was no money for the house payments or anything else.3 I felt that I had no special talent, no training, no college education.I didn‟t think much of myself.But I remembered someone in my past who had thought I had a little ability — my high school English teacher.She had inspired me to take a course in journalism and named me advertising manager and feature editor of the school paper.I thought, “Now if I could write a „shoppers Column‟ for the small weekly newspaper in our rural town, maybe I could earn that house payment.4 I had no car and no one to look after my two children.So I took them with me to the newspaper office, pushing them before me in an old broken-down baby stroller with a big pillow tied in the back.The wheel kept coming off, but I hit it back on with the heel of my shoe and kept going.I was determined that my children would not lose their home as I often had as a child.But at the newspaper office, there were no jobs available.Recession.So I got an idea.I asked if I might buy advertising space at wholesale and sell it at retail as a “shoppers Column.” They agreed.The newspaper column idea worked.I made enough money for the house payment and to buy an old used car.Then I hired a high school girl to look after my children from three to five each afternoon.When the clock struck three, I grabbed my advertising samples and flew out of the door to drive to my appointments.7 But on one dark rainy afternoon every advertising prospect I had worked on turned me down when I went to pick up their ads.8 “Why?” I asked.They said they had noticed that Ruben Ahlman, the president of the Chamber of Commerce and the owner of a big drugstore, didn‟t advertise with me.His store was the most popular in town.They respected his judgment.“There must be something wrong with your advertising,” they explained.My heart sank.Those four ads would have been enough for the monthly house payment.Then I thought, I‟ll try to speak with Mr.Ahlman one more time.Everyone loves and respects him.Surely he‟ll listen.Every time I‟d tried to approach him in the past, he had refused to see me.But I knew that if he advertised with me, the other merchants in town would follow his lead.10 As I walked into Mr.Ahlman‟s drugstore, he was there at the prescription counter.I smiled my best smile and said, “Everyone respects your opinion, Mr.Ahlman.Would you just look at my work for a moment so that I can tell the other merchants what you think?”
Without saying a word he firmly shook his head “no”.Suddenly all of my enthusiasm left me.I made it as far as the beautiful old soda fountain at the front of the drugstore, feeling that I didn‟t have the strength to drive home.I didn‟t want to sit at the soda fountain without buying something, so I ordered a Coke.I wondered desperately what to do.Would my babies lose their home as I had so many times when I was growing up? Was my English teacher wrong? My eyes filled with tears.A soft voice beside me said, “What‟s the matter, dear?” I looked up into the sympathetic face of a lovely gray-haired lady.I poured out my story to her, ending it with, “But Mr.Ahlman, who everyone respects so much, refuses to look at my work.” 14 “Let me see that Shoppers Column,” she said.She took my marked issue of the newspaper in her hands and carefully read my column all the way through.Then she stood up, looked back at the prescription counter and in a commanding voice, said, ”Ruben Ahlman, come here!” The lady was Mrs.Ahlman!She told Ruben to buy some advertising from me.His mouth turned up in a big grin.Then she asked me for the names of the four merchants who had turned me down.She went to the phone and called each one.She gave me a hug and told me they were waiting for me.Ruben and Vivian Ahlman became our dear friends, as well as steady advertising customers.I learned that Ruben was a darling man who bought from everyone.He had promised Vivian not to buy any more advertising, and in turning me down he was just trying to keep his word to her.If I had only asked others in town, I might have learned that I should have been talking to Mrs.Ahlman from the beginning.That conversation at the soda fountain was the turning point.My advertising business thrived and grew into four offices, with 285 employees serving 4,000 businesses.17 Later when Mr.Ahlman modernized the old drug store and removed the soda fountain, my husband bought it and installed it in my office.If you were here, we‟d sit at the soda fountain together.I‟d pour you a Coke and remind you to never give up, to remember that help is always closer than we know.Then I would tell you that if you can‟t communicate with a key person, search for more information.Try another path.Look for someone who can communicate for you.And, finally, I would offer you the sparkling, refreshing words of Bill Marriott of the Marriott Hotels: “Failure? I‟ve never encountered it.All I ever met were temporary setbacks.”
第二篇：J.K.罗琳在哈佛大学XX年毕业典礼上的演讲（范文）
Ｊ.Ｋ.罗琳在哈佛大学XX年毕业典礼
上的演讲
对于我这样一个已经42岁的人来说，回头看自己21岁大学毕业时的情景，并不是一件舒服的事情。那时，我一直在自己内心的追求与亲人对我的要求之间，进行抗争。
我曾确信自己唯一想做的事情是写小说，但我的父母都来自贫穷的家庭，他们希望我去读一个能学到专业技能的学位，而我想去攻读英国文学。最后，达成了一个双方都不甚满意的妥协：我改学外语。可是等父母一离开，我立刻报名学习古典文学。
我忘了自己是怎么把学古典文学的事情告诉父母的了，他们也可能是在我毕业那天才第一次发现。在这个星球上的所有科目中，他们很难再发现一门比希腊文学更没用的课程了。
我想说明，我并没有因为父母的这些观点而抱怨他们。他们希望我能摆脱贫穷，因为贫穷会引起恐惧、压力，有时候甚至是沮丧。这意味着心胸狭窄、卑微低下和很多艰难困苦。通过自己的努力摆脱贫穷，确实是件很值得自豪的事，只有傻瓜才对贫穷本身夸夸其谈。
可以说，仅仅在我毕业７年后，我经历了一次巨大的失败。我突然间结束了一段短暂的婚姻，失去了工作。作为单身妈妈，而且在这个现代化的英国，除了不是无家可归，你可以说我要多穷就有多穷。父母对我的担心以及我对自己的担心，都成了现实，从任何一个通常的标准来看，这都是我的最大失败。
我不是站在这里和你们说“失败”很好玩。那么我为什么还要谈论失败的收益呢？那是因为失败后我找到了自我，我开始把所有的精力都放在我关心的工作上。如果我在其他方面成功过，我可能就不会下决心在自己喜欢的领域获得成功。我变得从容，因为我已经历过最大的恐惧。而且我还活着，我有一个值得自豪的女儿，一个陈旧的打字机和很不错的写作灵感。我在失败堆积而成的硬石般的基础上，开始重筑我的人生（此后，j.k.罗琳写就了风靡全球的《哈利•波特》系列——编者注）。
失败给了我内心的安宁，这种安宁是不会从一帆风顺的经历中得到的。失败让我认识自己，这些无法从其他地方学到。我发现自己有坚强的意志，而且，自我控制能力比自己想象的还要强，我也发现自己拥有比红宝石更珍贵的朋友。
除非遭受磨难，你不会真正认识自己，也无法知道你和朋友之间的关系有多铁。这些才是失败馈赠给你的真正的礼物。
（本文是《哈利•波特》的作者罗琳在哈佛大学XX年毕业典礼上的演讲辞）
第三篇：JK罗琳哈佛毕业演讲——不要害怕失败（最终版）
http://ares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.每一天，我都能看到更多有关恶人的证据，他们为了获得或维持权力，对自己的同胞犯下暴行。我开始做噩梦，真正意义上的噩梦，全都和我所见所闻有关。
And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.同时在这里我也了解到更多关于人类的善良，比我以前想象的要多很多。Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have.The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners.Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet.My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and
http://ares than I do.Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors.I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters.They are often more afraid.我可能会受到诱惑，去嫉妒那样生活的人。但我不认为他们做的噩梦会比我更少。选择生活在狭窄的空间，可以导致不敢面对开阔的视野，给自己带来恐惧感。我认为不愿展开想像的人会看到更多的怪兽，他们往往更感到更害怕。
What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters.For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.更甚的是，那些选择不去同情的人，可能会激活真正的怪兽。因为尽管自己没有犯下罪恶，我们却通过冷漠与之勾结。
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.我18岁开始从古典文学中汲取许多知识，其中之一当时并不完全理解，那就是希腊作家普鲁塔克所说：我们内心获得的，将改变外在的现实。
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives.It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside
http://www.xiexiebang.com/kaoyan/ 那是一个惊人的论断，在我们生活的每一天里被无数次证实。它指明我们与外部世界有无法脱离的联系，我们以自身的存在接触着他人的生命。
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities.Even your nationality sets you apart.The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower.The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders.That is your privilege, and your burden.但是，哈佛大学的2008届毕业生们，你们多少人有可能去触及他人的生命？你们的智慧，你们努力工作的能力，以及你们所受到的教育，给予你们独特的地位和责任。甚至你们的国籍也让你们与众不同，你们绝大部份人属于这个世界上唯一的超级大国。你们表决的方式，你们生活的方式，你们抗议的方式，你们给政府带来的压力，具有超乎寻常的影响力。这是你们的特权，也是你们的责任。
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice;if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless;if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped to change.We do not need magic to transform the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.http://www.xiexiebang.com/kaoyan/ 仅与强者为伍，还会同情帮扶弱者；如果你会设身处地为不如你的人着想，那么你的存在，将不仅是你家人的骄傲，更是无数因为你的帮助而改变命运的成千上万人的骄傲。我们不需要改变世界的魔法，我们自己的内心就有这种力量：那就是我们一直在梦想，让这个世界变得更美好。
I am nearly finished.I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21.The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life.They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of real trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters.At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.我的演讲要接近尾声了。对你们，我有最后一个希望，也是我21岁时就有的。毕业那天坐在我身边的朋友现在是我终身的挚交，他们是我孩子的教父母，是在我遇到麻烦时愿意伸出援手，在我用他们的名字给哈利波特中的 “食死徒”起名而不会起诉我的朋友。我们在毕业典礼时坐在了一起，因为我们关系亲密，拥有共同的永远无法再来的经历，当然，也因为假想要是我们中的任何人竞选首相，那照片将是极为宝贵的关系证明。So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships.And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
http://www.xiexiebang.com/kaoyan/ 得我说的任何一个字，你们还能记得哲学家塞内加的一句至理明言。我当年没有顺着事业的阶梯向上攀爬，转而与他在古典文学的殿堂相遇，他的古老智慧给了我人生的启迪： As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.生活就像故事一样：不在乎长短，而在于质量，这才是最重要的。I wish you all very good lives.我祝愿你们都有美好的生活。Thank you very much.非常感谢大家。
第四篇：双语J·K·罗琳在哈佛大学08年毕业典礼上的演讲
她的演讲题目是《失败的好处和想象的重要性》（The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination）。
她几乎没有谈到哈里波特，而是说了年轻时的一些经历。虽然J·K·罗琳现在很有钱，是英国仅次于女皇的最富有的女人，但是她曾经有一段非常艰辛的日子，30岁了，还差点流落街头。她主要谈的是，自己从这段经历中学到的东西。
我只找到了一部分中文翻译，有兴趣的朋友可以看下面的原文和视频。
二、她首先回忆了自己大学毕业的情景：
I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels.However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.当时，我只想去写小说。但是，我的父母出身贫寒，没有受过大学教育。他们认为，我那些不安分的想象力只是一种怪癖，根本不能用来还房贷，或者挣来养老金。
They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree;I wanted to study English Literature.A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages.Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.他们希望我再去读个专业学位，而我想去攻读英国文学。最后，达成了一个双方都不甚满意的妥协：我改学外语。可是等到父母一走开，我立刻报名学习古典文学。
I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics;they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day.Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.我不记得将这事告诉了父母。他们可能是在毕业典礼那一天才发现的。我想，在全世界的所有专业中，他们也许认为，不会有比研究希腊神话更没用的专业了，根本无法换来一间独立的宽敞卫生间。
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view....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.我要申明，我并不责怪父母。„„他们只是希望我不要过穷日子，我不能批评他们。他们自己很穷，我后来一度也很穷，所以我很理解他们，贫穷是一种悲惨的经历。它带来恐惧、压力、有时还有抑郁。它意味着许许多多的羞辱和艰辛。靠自己的努力摆脱贫穷，确实让人自豪，但是只有傻瓜才会将贫穷本身浪漫化。
接着，她谈到了自己那些最悲惨的日子：
A mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale.我毕业后只过了7年，就失败得一塌糊涂。
An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless.The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.短命的婚姻闪电般地破裂，我还失业了，成了一个艰难的单身母亲。除了流浪汉，我是当代英国最穷的人之一，真的一无所有。我父母对我的担忧，我对自己的担忧，都变成了现实。用平常人的标准，我是我所知道的最失败的人。
That period of my life was a dark one.I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.那段日子是我生命中的黑暗岁月。我不知道还要在黑暗中走多久，很长一段时间中，我有的只是希望，而不是现实。
但是，J.K.罗琳认为，没有那段日子的失败，就不会有后来的她。
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.为什么我说失败是有好处的？因为失败将那些非本质的东西都剥离了。我不再伪装自己，我找到了真正的我，我将自己所有的精力，投入完成对我最重要的唯一一项工作。
Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.要是我以前在其他地方成功了，那么我也许永远不会有这样的决心，投身于这个我自信真正属于我的领域。I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea.And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.我自由了，因为我最大的恐惧已经成为现实，而我却还依然活着，依然有一个深爱着的女儿，我还有一台旧打字机和一个大大的梦想。我生命中最低的低点，成为我重建生活的坚实基础。
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way.I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected;I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.失败使我的内心产生一种安全感，以前通过考试也没有的安全感。失败让我看清自己，以前我从没认识到自己是这样的。我发现，我比自己以为的，有更强的意志和决心。我还发现，我有一些比宝石更珍贵的朋友。
You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.只有到逆境来临的那一天，你才会真正了解你自己，了解你结识的人。这种了解是真正的财富，虽然是用痛苦换来的，但是它比我以前得到的任何证书都有用。
三、我要重点谈的，是演说的结尾部分。
一般来说，在演讲结束时，嘉宾将对毕业生提出期望。我们可以看到，在这种场合，几乎所有嘉宾，都没有说“祝愿同学们取得个人成功”，而是说“希望同学们努力去减轻人类的苦难”。
比尔·盖茨去年说：
Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world's worst inequities? Should Harvard students learn about the depth of global poverty „ the prevalence of world hunger „ the scarcity of clean water „the girls kept out of school „ the children who die from diseases we can cure?
哈佛是否鼓励她的老师去研究解决世界上最严重的不平等？哈佛的学生是否从全球那些极端的贫穷中学到了什么„„世界性的饥荒„„清洁的水资源的缺乏„„无法上学的女童„„死于非恶性疾病的儿童„„哈佛的学生有没有从中学到东西？
Should the world's most privileged people learn about the lives of the world's least privileged?
那些世界上过着最优越生活的人们，有没有从那些最困难的人们身上学到东西？ These are not rhetorical questions – you will answer with your policies.这些问题并非语言上的修辞。你必须用自己的行动来回答它们。
When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given – in talent, privilege, and opportunity – there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.想一想吧，我们在这个院子里的这些人，被给予过什么——天赋、特权、机遇——那么可以这样说，全世界的人们几乎有无限的权力，期待我们做出贡献。
J.K.罗琳今年说：
the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure.You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success.Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.你们是哈佛毕业生的这个事实，说明你们并不很了解失败。你们也许极其渴望成功，所以非常害怕失败。说实话，你们眼中的失败，很可能就是普通人眼中的成功，毕竟你们在学业上已经很成功了。
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities.„„ That is your privilege, and your burden.但是，所有各位哈佛大学2008届毕业生，你们对其他人的生活了解多少？你们的智慧、你们的能力、你们所受的教育，给了你们独一无二的优势，也给了你们独一无二的责任。„„你们的优势就是你们的责任。
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice;if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless;if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better.你们要用自己的地位和影响，为那些被忽略的人们说话；你们不仅要看到那些有权有势者，也要看到那些无权无势者；你们要学会设想，那些条件不如你们的人们是如何生活的；那样的话，不仅你们的亲人们将为你们感到自豪，而且千千万万的人们将因为你们的帮助而生活得更好。
We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.我们不需要改变世界的魔法，我们自己的体内就有这样的力量：那就是我们一直在梦想，让这个世界变得更美好。
The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination Harvard University Commencement Address J.K.Rowling
Copyright June 2008
As prepared for delivery
President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates，The first thing I would like to say is 'thank you.' Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I've experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight.A win-win situation!Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world's best-educated Harry Potter convention.Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility;or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation.The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock.Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said.This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock.Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today.I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.I have come up with two answers.On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure.And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called 'real life', I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become.Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels.However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree;I wanted to study English Literature.A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages.Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics;they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day.Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view.There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction;the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.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.What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.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.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.However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure.You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success.Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person's idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it.So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale.An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless.The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun.That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution.I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea.And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable.It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way.I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected;I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive.You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement.Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two.Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so.Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense.Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation.In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books.This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs.Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International's headquarters in London.There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them.I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends.I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries.I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government.Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland.He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him.He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child.I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since.The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her.She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country's regime, his mother had been seized and executed.Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power.I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have.The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners.Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet.My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced.They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other people's places.Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral.One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all.They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are.They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages;they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally;they can refuse to know.I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do.Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors.I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters.They are often more afraid.What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters.For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives.It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing.But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities.Even your nationality sets you apart.The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower.The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders.That is your privilege, and your burden.If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice;if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless;if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better.We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.I am nearly finished.I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21.The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life.They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters.At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships.And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.I wish you all very good lives.Thank you very much.（J.K.Rowling.2008.Harvard University Commencement Address.Harvard University, MA
第五篇：[高考语文]JK罗琳在哈佛的演讲--失败的附加值和想象力的重要性
失败的附加值和想象力的重要性 ——JK罗琳在哈佛的演讲
福斯特校长，校理事会和校务监督委员会的成员们，各位老师，各位骄傲的父母们，还有最重要的，毕业生们： 首先我要说谢谢，不只是因为哈佛给了我莫大的荣誉，也是因为这几个礼拜一直思考怎么做这个毕业演讲带来的焦虑和担忧让我成功地减了肥。真是喜上加喜！现在我只需要做几个深呼吸，偷偷看着那面红色的旗子，然后骗自己说我正在一个受过世界最优秀的教育的哈利波特们的大会上。
做一个毕业演讲的责任很大。但是当我回忆了一下我毕业的时候听到的毕业演讲以后，我改变了我的想法。那天来做演讲的人是英国著名的哲学家baroness mary warnock。回忆她的演讲真的对我写这个稿子帮助很大，因为我发现我连一个字都不记得了。这个发现让我大大地松了一口气，我不再担心有的人会因为我演讲而放弃他们很有前途的经济、法律或者是政治方面的工作，而为了放纵的快乐成为一名同性恋巫师。
你们看，就算你们以后回忆起我的演讲时只能记得这个“同性恋巫师”的笑话，我仍然会觉得自己比baroness mary warnock成功。取得个人成功的第一步——给自己一个可以达到的目标。
实际上，为了想出合适的话题，我把自己弄得心力交瘁。我问过我自己：“我希望我毕业的时候知道什么？”在这毕业之后的二十一年里，我又学到了那些宝贵的知识呢？ 我有两个答案。在这个美好的日子里，在我们欢聚在一起庆祝你们取得的学术上的成就的时候，我决定要告诉你们失败的好处。同时，因为你们已经站在了“现实”的门槛上，我打算赞美一下想象力的至关重要性。
这两个选择看起来奇怪而又相互矛盾，但请耐心地听我说完。
回头看刚毕业的21岁的我，让今天已经42岁的我感到一些不舒服。21岁，我的生命到现在为止的前一半的时候，我努力地试图在自己的野心和家人的期望之间取得一个平衡。我一直坚定地相信，我唯一想做的事情，就是写作。但是我的父母，出生于贫寒家庭，从未上过大学，他们把我过于活跃的想象力看作一种只属于个人的怪癖，既不能用来偿还抵押贷款，又不能用来领福利救济。他们希望我能够读一个实用点儿的专业，我则希望读英国文学。于是我们都做了妥协——虽然在今天看来这个妥协不能让任何人满意——结果是我读了现代语言。可是当我的父母一离开，我马上就报了古典文学的名。我不记得有没有告诉过我的父母我在学古典文学，他们也许是在毕业典礼那天才知道的。在这个星球上的所有的科目当中，我想他们不能找到比希腊神话更没有用的学科了，因为这个根本无法换来一个宽敞的独立厕所。
我要申明的是，我完全不是在责备我的父母。只有当你能够承担你的责任，掌握自己生活的方向的时候，你才有权力怪你的父母曾经逼着你走了冤枉路。并且，我也不能因为我的父母希望我永远不会体验贫穷而批评他们。他们自己是穷人，我也是，因此我们都认为这样的体验绝对不是什么高贵的经历。贫穷总是伴随着恐惧、压力甚至抑郁，你会经历多如牛毛的羞辱和困难。靠自己的努力摆脱贫困确实是一件值得骄傲的事情，但是除了傻瓜以外，没有人会觉得贫穷是浪漫的。
我像你们这么大年纪的时候，最害怕的不是贫穷，而是失败。
在那个时候，因为缺乏学习的动机，我花了太多的时间在咖啡馆里写文章，而仅把极少的时间用在课程的学习上。我有通过考试的特异功能。而这个，多年以来，一直是对我和我同龄人成功与否的衡量标准。我不会天真到认为因为你们是年轻聪明，教育水平很高的大学生，你们的生活就是一帆风顺的。再有天赋和聪慧的人也会体会到命运的反复无常。我也从来不曾设想过，我们当中会有谁的生活尽如人意。
但是你们毕业于哈佛这个事实说明了你们应该不常尝试失败的滋味，对成功的渴望和对失败的恐惧同时在激励着你们，事实上，也许你们的失败的概念和普通人的成功的概念差别不大，因此才能在学术上取得如此的成就。
最终，我们都会有自己的失败的定义，同时，如果你不留神，世界也会非常急切地给你一整套的标准。我完全有理由说，在我毕业七年以后，我，不管从哪一个衡量标准来说，都是一个彻头彻尾的失败者。结束了我短暂的婚姻，失去了工作，成为单亲妈妈，处于现代英国社会的最贫穷阶层，唯一值得庆幸的是，不是无家可归。我父母对我的担忧，我对自己的担忧，全都变成了现实。不管怎么看，我都是我所知道的最大的失败。
此刻，我不会站在这里告诉你们失败是有趣的，我人生中的这个阶段灰暗极了，我也并不知道会出现后来的像媒体描述的“童话般的”解决方式。我不知道这样的黑暗会延伸到哪儿，并且很长一段时间里，出现在尽头处的光都只是最后破灭的希望。
为什么我会说到失败的益处呢？那是因为失败会帮你分清生活中重要的和不重要的事情，并且让你剔除掉不重要的。我开始认识到最真实的我自己，集中我的全部精力来完成对我来说唯一重要的工作。如果我曾经在别的方面成功过，我不可能下定决心要在这个竞技场上取得胜利，尽管我坚信我属于这里。我自由了，因为我最大的恐惧已经成为了现实，可是我还活着，有一个珍爱的女儿，有一台老的打字机和一个绝佳的主意。因此，人生低谷的谷底反倒成了我重建我的人生的坚实的基础。
你也许永远不会像我一样失败，但是人生中的失败是在所难免的。你总会在什么方面失败，除非你谨小慎微到什么也不做的程度——但是这样你也是失败的，你因为缺席你的人生而失败。
失败给了我成功地通过考试从来没有获得过的内心的安全感，失败让我看清楚了在别的情况下永远不能看到的我自己，我发现自己有坚强的意志，比我想象的更多的原则，我也发现我拥有比钻石还珍贵的朋友。
当你发现自己在一次次的失败中变得更坚强和充满智慧的时候，就意味着，你已经具备了顽强地生存的能力了。如果没有挫折的考验，你永远不会知道自己有多强，也不会知道你身边的人会给你多大的支持。这样的知识才是真正的礼物，因为它是如此的来之不易，也是如此的珍贵，任何别的能力都无法与之相比。
如果我能有一台时间机器，或者是时空隧道，我会告诉21岁的我自己，如果想要获得幸福，就必须要明白，生活不是一张写满了你所获得的和你的成就的单子。你的资格证书、你的履历和你的生活毫无关联，虽然很多跟你同龄或者年长于你的人都并没有分清这二者。生活复杂而艰辛，没有人可以完全控制他，只有认识到了这个，才能够承受人生的起起落落。你们也许会认为我选择想象力的重要性作为我的第二个主题是因为想象力在我重新站起来的过程中起到了重要作用，但是事实不完全如此。虽然我会至死不渝地坚信睡前故事的重要价值，我也认为想象力应该有更广泛的定义，想象力不仅仅是人类独有的看到比眼睛能看到的更多的东西的能力，也是一切发明和创新的基础。在它的富于争议性的诸多功能中，能带来最多改变的就是，让我们能够同情那些我们自己从来没有经历过的，别人的经历。
在写哈利波特之前，我有一个非常重要的经历，在我的书里我写了很多跟它有关的事情。这是我早期的工作之一。虽然常常在午饭时间溜出去写小说，但是我二十几岁的时候，是靠在国际特赦组织伦敦总部的研究中心工作养活自己的。
在我的小小的办公室里，我读到了很多草草写就的信件，在极权主义统治之下的人民，冒着坐牢的危险，把这些信偷运出来，以告诉世界他们的遭遇。我看到了很多无缘无故的失踪的人的照片，他们绝望的家人和朋友把这些照片发到了特赦组织。我读到了那些被折磨的人的陈述，看到了他们的伤口的照片。也看到了手写的绑架和强奸案的证人记录。我那时候的很多同事以前都是政治犯，他们因为有保持独立于政府之外的思考的勇气而不得不离开自己的家，被迫流亡。到我们办公室来的人，通常都是来报信，或者是想要知道他们离开之后，他们被迫抛下的亲人有什么遭遇。我永远也忘不了一名非洲的酷刑的受害者，一个和当时的我差不多大的年轻人，在他的祖国经受了种种折磨之后，患上了严重的精神疾病，当他对着一台摄影机说自己受到的残酷的虐待的时候，他不能自制地浑身发抖。他比我高一英寸左右，看起来就像一个小孩一样脆弱。我的任务是护送他去地铁站，我们分别的时候，这个自己的生活已经支离破碎的年轻人，极度彬彬有礼地握着我的手，祝我有一个幸福的未来。我永远也忘不了当我走在空荡荡的走廊上时，突然从一扇紧闭的门后传来我听到过的最惨的充满了痛苦和绝望的哀嚎。门打开了，一个工作人员探出头来，让我赶快去给坐在他旁边的年轻人拿一杯咖啡。他刚刚得知，作为对他敢发表违反国家意志的言论的报复，他的母亲已经被处死了。
在我这段工作经历里，每一天我都在提醒自己，能够出生在一个民主的人人都拥有为自己公开辩护的权力的国家，我有多么的幸运。每一天，我都能看到一些邪恶的人类为了得到或者保持自己的权力而对他们的人民所犯下的罪行的证据。因我看到的、听到的，我开始不断地做噩梦。同时，我也在特赦组织越来越多地了解到了人性的善。
特赦组织动员了数以千计从来没有因为自己的信仰受到过折磨或者监禁的人出来为有这样遭遇的人说话，人类的同情心的力量，让他们拯救生命，解放囚徒。自身的幸福得到了满足的普通人民，大规模地聚集起来，拯救那些他们从不认识，也不会相见的人，我的参与只是其中的微不足道的一小部分，但是仍然在我的人生中鼓舞我。和地球上的别的生物不同，人类拥有学习和了解自己没有经历过的事情的能力。他们可以从别人的角度来看问题，可以对别人的经历感同身受。
当然，这样的能力，就像我的小说想象力一样，是没有善恶之分的，人们可以利用这个能力来理解和同情别人，也可以控制和操纵别人。有很多人根本就不使用自己的想象力，他们宁可被自己的认识束缚，也不愿意去试着把自己置身于别的情况中。他们不在乎听到了什么样的惨叫或者是笼子里面有什么；只要鞭子不落到自己身上，他们就可以当作没发生；他们拒绝了解。如果我不知道他们和我一样恶梦连连，我也许会嫉妒可以这样生活的人。只愿意生活在狭窄的空间里会导致广场恐惧症，这会带来新的恐惧。不愿意想象的人看到更多的怪物，他们常常是更恐惧的人。更可怕的是，不愿意同情别人的人可能会创造真正的怪兽。就算我们完全不赞同那些邪恶的做法，我们也因为自己的漠不关心而成为了他们的同伙。
我十八岁时在古典文学课上学到的事情还包括当时无法理解的希腊学者普鲁塔克说的一句话：“我们对内在修养的追求将会改变外在现实。”
这个论断已经无数次的在我们的生活当中证明了他的正确性。在一定程度上，它表达了我们和外界的密不可分，揭示了我们只是单纯地存在，就会对他人造成影响的事实。
但是哈佛08届的毕业生们，你们当中有多少人会愿意去了解他人的人生呢？你们的聪明，你们勤奋工作的能力和你们获得的教育给了你们独有的地位和责任，虽然你们的国籍不同，但是你们当中的绝大部分都属于世界上仅存的超能力的一部分，你们投票的方式，生活的方式，抗议的方式，你们自己的压力给政府造成的影响，都有着远超出你们范围的影响力。这是你们的权利，也是你们的负担。如果你们选择运用自己的地位和影响来为那些不能发出声音的人说话，如果你们选择不只是和有权力的人而是也和没有权力的人站在一起，如果你们能够总是站在那些生活不如你的人的角度考虑问题，那样不只是你们的家人会因为有你们而幸，还有成千上万的因为你而改善了生活的人会因为有你而幸。我们不需要魔法来改变我们的生活，我们自身就已经拥有了强大的能力：憧憬更美好生活的能力。
在我的演讲将要结束的时候，我还有最后的一个希望，21岁的我曾经有幸拥有。在毕业典礼上坐在我身边的朋友成为了我一辈子的朋友，他们是我的孩子的教父教母，我遇到麻烦的时候帮助我，虽然我把他们的名字用作食死徒的名字，他们仍然没有告我。在我们的毕业典礼上，我们因为感情，因为我们一起度过的一去不返的时光而紧紧地联系在了一起，当然，理由还有，我们手里都捏着对方足够多的照片，足以在谁要竞选首相的时候敲他一大笔钱。所以几天，我也祝你们拥有同样的友谊。以后，我希望你们就算完全忘了我的演讲，也能记住另外一个古罗马人的讲话：
对于小说来说，重要的不是长度而是质量，人生同样如此。希望你们都有美好的人生。非常感谢。
The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination 2008 Harvard University Commencement, June 5, 2008.by J.K.Rowling
President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates, 致Faust校长，哈佛集团以及哈佛监事委员会的各位成员，各位教职员工，众多自豪的家长，以及最为重要的——各位毕业生们：
The first thing I would like to say is 'thank you.' Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honor, but the weeks of fear and nausea I've experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight.A win-win situation!Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world's best-educated Harry Potter convention.我想要说的第一句话是“谢谢你们”。这份感谢不仅来自于哈佛赋予我如此非同寻常的荣誉，更是由于几个星期以来每当我想到今天的致词就会觉得头晕恶心，因而终于成功的减肥了。这就是“双赢”啊！现在，我只需要深呼吸几次，瞄几眼红色的横幅，然后装模作样的让自己相信，我正身处世界上受过最好教育的哈里波特迷的盛大集会之中。
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility;or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation.The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock.Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said.This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock.Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.在毕业典礼上致词意味着极大的责任——我这样想着，直到我开始回想我自己的毕业典礼。那天致词的是著名的英国哲学家 Baroness Mary Warnock。对于她的演讲的回忆也极大地帮助了我完成现在这份，因为，我完全想不起来她说了什么。这个具有解放意义的重大发现让我无所畏惧的写下自己的致词，因为我再也不必担心会在不经意间对你们造成影响，以至于让你们为了成为一个快乐巫师的虚幻憧憬，就放弃自己在商业、法律界或政界的远大前程。看到了吧？就算若干年后你们对我的演讲的印象只剩下这个“快乐的巫师”的笑话，那我还是领先了Baroness Mary Warnock一步的。能够达成的目标是自我改善的第一步。
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today.I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.事实上，为了确定今天应该对你们说些什么，我真是绞尽了脑汁。我问自己，在我自己的毕业典礼上，我曾期待知道什么？而自那天开始到现在的21年间，我又学到了那些教训？
I have come up with two answers.On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure.And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called 'real life', I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.我想到了两个答案。在今天这个美妙的时刻，当我们齐聚一堂庆祝你们取得学业成功的时候，我决定跟你们谈谈失败带来的好处。另外，在你们正要一脚踏入所谓“真实的生活”的时候，我还要高声赞颂想象力的重大意义。
These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.这些决定看起来颇为荒诞而矛盾，但是啊，请听我慢慢道来。
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