J·K·罗琳在哈佛大学08年毕业典礼上的演讲raw

第一篇：J·K·罗琳在哈佛大学08年毕业典礼上的演讲raw

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination Harvard University Commencement Address J.K.Rowling

As prepared for delivery

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 willfully 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

第二篇：J·K·罗琳在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲

她首先说了自己如何构思演讲稿，以及选择的两个演讲主题。

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.福斯特校长，哈佛集团的各位成员，监管理事会的各位理事，各位老师，各位自豪的家长，以及最重要的各位毕业生同学，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 have endured 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 convince myself that I am at the world's largest Gryffindor reunion.我想说的第一句话，就是“谢谢”。不仅因为哈佛给了我这样非同一般的荣誉，还因为为了构思今天的演讲，我忍受了几个星期的担惊受怕、茶饭不思的生活，使得我体重减轻。这真可谓“双赢”啊！现在，我唯一要做的就是深呼吸，偷偷看一眼四周飘扬的红色旗帜，让自己相信真的来到了世界上最大的“格兰芬多” 聚会。

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, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.在毕业典礼上发表演讲，是一项巨大的责任，令我倍感压力。直到我回忆起了自己的毕业典礼，才稍稍放松。那一次的演讲嘉宾是杰出的英国哲学家玛丽·沃诺克。回想她的演讲，极大地帮助我写作自己的演讲稿，因为我发现一点也不记得她的任何一句话了。这个发现让我如释重负，不再害怕自己在不经意间就对你们产生影响，让你们放弃在商业、法律、政治方面的大好前途，去追求成为一个快乐巫师的那种令人眩晕的愉悦。

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock.Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.你们明白吗？如果多年以后，你们只记得我讲的这个“快乐巫师”的笑话，我就已经超过玛丽·沃诺克了。可以实现的目标，是自己改进的第一步。38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 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 have expired between that day and this.实际上，我真的是绞尽脑汁，思索今天自己到底应该讲什么。我问自己，当年我毕业的时候，希望知道哪些事情；以及21年后的今天，我又从人生中得到哪些重要的经验教训。

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.我得到了两个回答。这个美妙的日子，我们聚集一堂，庆祝你们在学业上的成功，但是我决定跟你们说说失败的好处。以及当你们站在所谓“真实世界”的门槛之上的时候，我要颂扬想象力的重要性。

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.这样的主题可能看上去有点异想天开和自相矛盾，但是请听下去。

三、她开始回忆自己大学毕业时的情景：

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.对于一个42岁的妇女来说，回想自己21岁毕业时的情景，是一种稍稍令人不安的经历。回到21年之前，我正遭受煎熬，不知道在自己内心的追求与父母对我的期望之间，应该如何平衡。

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 would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.当时，我确信自己一生中唯一想做的事情，就是去写小说。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72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 本不能用来还房贷，或者挣来养老金。我现在知道，这种人生的反讽，有着卡通片里大铁砧般的巨大打击力。

So they 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职业学位，而我想去研究英国文学。最后，达成了一个双方都不甚满意的妥协：我改学语言学。可是等到父母的车消失在公路的转角，我就立刻抛掉了德语，奔向古典文学的道路。

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 the 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.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.我要申明，我并不责怪父母有这种看法。父母只在一段时间内，对你的人生方向负责；当你长大以后，你自己就控制了人生方向，必须自己承担责任。而且，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.109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 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。

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。142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 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。在演说的下半部分，她还谈了毕业后在大*赦*国*际（Amnesty International）伦敦总部的第一份工作。这部分内容也很精彩，不过我就不翻译了，大家可以去看原文。

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? 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 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 questionsin 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209 210 211 212 213 214 215 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。

第三篇：J·K·罗琳在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲

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）。我读了一遍讲稿，觉得很好，很感染人。

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。

去年的演讲嘉宾是比尔·盖茨，我翻译了他的演讲，影响挺大。今年，我只翻译了一部分，有兴趣的朋友可以在网上找到全部原文和视频。

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。

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。

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。

在演说的下半部分，她还谈了毕业后在大*赦*国*际（Amnesty International）伦敦总部的第一份工作。这部分内容也很精彩，不过我就不翻译了，大家可以去看原文。

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。

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）。

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 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。

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。

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。

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。

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination Harvard University Commencement Address J.K.Rowling

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:

第五篇：JK罗琳在哈佛毕业典礼上的演讲[定稿]

JK罗琳在哈佛毕业典礼上的演讲

福斯特主席，哈佛公司和监察委员会的各位员工，各位老师，家长、同学们；

首先请允许我说一声谢谢，哈佛给予我的不仅仅是无上的荣誉，还有连日来因为一想到这个演讲，带来的恐惧和恐惧导致的的阵阵恶心让我减肥成功。这真是一个双赢的局面。现在我不得不深呼吸，眯着眼睛看着眼前的大红横幅、安慰自己只是在世界上最大的矮人的大会上。

发表毕业演说是一个巨大的责任，我的思绪一下子回到自己的毕业典礼上，那天做报告的是英国著名的哲学家Baroness Mary Warnock。通过对她的演讲的回忆，对我写今天的演讲稿，给予了极大地帮助，因为我不记得她说过的任何一句话了。这个发现让我释然，让我不再有任何恐惧：我可能会无意中影响你放弃在商业，法律或政治有前途的职业，而为眩晕的愉悦成为一个‘gay精灵’

如果在今后几年您还记得是'gay精灵'的笑话，说明我已经超出了Baroness Mary Warnock。可实现的目标：个人提高的第一步。

其实，我为今天应该告诉你们什么，已经殚精竭虑。我曾问自己，我想在从毕业到现在的21年，我学到和了解到什么重要的教训。我已想出了两个答案。在这个美好的一天，当我们正聚集在一起，庆祝您取得的毕业的时刻，我已决定与你们谈谈失败的好处；另一方面你们站在'现实生活中'门槛上，我要歌颂至关重要的想象力。

这些似乎是不切实际或似是而非的选择，但请原谅我。

让一个已经42岁的人回顾在她毕业时的21岁，是一个稍微不舒服的经历。可以说，我人生的前一部分，我一直挣扎在我自己的雄心和身边的人对我的期望两者之间取得平衡。我一直深信，我唯一想做的事，是写小说。不过，我的父母，两人都来自贫穷的背景和没有任何一人上过大学，坚持认为，我过度的想象力是一个令人惊讶的个人怪癖，绝不可支付按揭，或安全的退休金。

他们希望我拿到一个职业学位;我想学习英语文学。最终，我去学习现代语言。事后看来，这是一个没有人感到满意的妥协。我放弃了德语和逃到古典文学的殿堂。

我不记得是否告诉我的父母，我是学习古典文学，也许他们很可能在我毕业那天第一次发现。在这个星球上的所有科目，我认为他们认为在没有比希腊神话学更糟糕的了。

我想澄清一下：我不会因为他们的观点，而责怪我的父母。埋怨父母、怨天尤人是有一个年龄界限的。你的父母为驱使你走向错误的方向;但是当你自己可以控制方向的时候，责任在于你。另外，我不会批评我的父母希望我绝不要经历贫穷。他们是贫穷的，我也一直很贫穷，我非常同意他们：贫穷绝不是一个崇高的生活经验。贫困带来的恐惧，压力，有时是绝望;这意味着屈辱和苦难。用您自己的努力摆脱贫困，这确实是一件对自己而言骄傲的事情，但贫穷本身只有对傻瓜而言才是浪漫的。

我自己在你们的年龄，最害怕的不是穷，而是失败。

我在您们的年龄，明显缺乏在大学学习的动力，我花了太久在咖啡吧写故事的时间，而在课堂的时间很少。我有一个通过考试的诀窍，并且数年间一直认为我的生活在我的同龄人中是成功的。现在，我不愚蠢假设，因为你们的年轻，天才和受过良好教育的，就从来没有困难或心碎的时刻。才华和智商，从来没有让人对命运的反复无常有所准备；我也不会假设大家这里都享受沉着和满足。(有疑问)。但事实上，你是从哈佛大学毕业，您不是很熟悉失败。您害怕失败与渴望成功。事实上，您构想的失败可能和一般人的对成功的看法不会太远，你们已经站在一个如此高的地方。

最终，我们所有人都必须自己决定什么构成失败，但如果你让，世界是相当渴望给你一套准则。因此，我认为公平地说，从任何传统的标准看，在我毕业仅仅七年后的日子，我的失败达到了史诗的规模。一个非常短命的破裂的婚姻，失业，一个单亲家长，像在现代英国的穷人一样，只是还没有无家可归。我的父母对我的担心和我对自己的担心，都在眼前。按照惯常的标准，我是我知道的最大的失败者。

现在，我不打算站在这里告诉你，失败是好玩的。这期间我的生活是完全黑暗的隧道中，更不知道代表作为一种童话故事的革命，来面对如此多的新闻媒体。我都不知道有隧道有多远，并在相当长的时间，任何尽头的光明都只是一个希望而不是现实。

所以为什么我要谈的好处失败吗？只是因为失败意味着剥离你不必需的东西。我不在伪装自己，我就是我，并直接把我的所有精力放在对我而言唯一重要的工作上。如果不是我没有在其他领域成功过，我可能就不会发现，在一个我相信我真正属于舞台上取得成功的决心。我获得了自由，因为我最害怕的已经发生了，但是我还活着，我还有一个我深爱着的女儿，我有一个旧打字机和一个大的想法。所以谷底，成为我的生活重建的坚实的基础。

你可能永远有像我经历的那种失败的程度，但有些失败，在生活中是不可避免的。生活不可能没有一点失败，除非你这么谨慎，您可能过着一点也没有失败的生活-在这种情况下，预设你是失败的。

失败给了我内心的安全，是我从通过考试中没有得到过的。失败能教我的关于自己的东西，舍此别无他途。我发现我有一个坚强的意志，比我曾经怀疑的更多的原则，我也发现我的朋友，其价值是远在红宝石之上。

从挫折中得到知识，会使你明智和更坚强的。也就是说，您比以往任何时候有能力生存。你从来没有真正认识自己，或通过逆境的检验认识到您的朋友的力量。对所有人而言，这种认知是一个真正的礼物，这是痛苦的胜利，比我取得的任何资格有着更高的价值。

给我是一部时间机器，我会告诉21岁的自己，个人的幸福在于知道生命是不是一个获得或取得的核对清单。你的资历，你的简历，都不是你的生活，虽然你会遇到很多人和我同龄或者更老一点的人依然混淆两者。生活是困难的，复杂的，超出任何人的控制，谦恭地知道这一点，将使你历经沧桑后能够更好的生存。

你可能会认为我选择了我的第二个主题，想象力的重要性，因为这是重建我生活的一部分，但事实并非完全如此。虽然我永远捍卫睡前的故事的价值，我已经学会的价值想象在更广泛的意义。想象力不仅是独特的人类能力：设想还不存在的事物，是所有发明和创新的源泉。这是改造和揭露的能力，使我们能够对从来都没有分享到的人类的经验共鸣。

其中一个影响最大的经历，在我写哈利波特的生活之前，但大部分是在我随后写在那些书籍里。这些新发现

为了付房租，我20多岁的主要工作是在大赦国际的伦敦总部的研究部门。虽然我在午餐时间是悄悄写故事。在我的小办公室，我看了人们匆匆写的从极权主义政权偷运出来的信，冒着被监禁的危险，告知外面的世界他们那里正在发生的事情。我看到他们的照片，这些已经消失无迹的人，由他们绝望的家人和朋友发送到大赦国际的。我看过的证词，酷刑受害者的照片，看到他们受伤。我打开笔迹、目击证人的供词、即决审判和处决，绑架和强奸犯的档案。

我有很多的合作者是被前政治犯，他们已离开家园流离失所，或逃往流放，因为他们大胆的独立思考。来我们的办公室的访客，包括那些来提供资料，或以设法找出那些被迫留下的同志发生了什么事的人。

我将永远不会忘记一个非洲酷刑的受害者，一名当时还没有比我年纪大年轻男子，因为他在故乡的经历已成为精神病患者。当他在摄像机前讲述被残暴的摧残的时候，颤抖失控。他是一个高我一英尺的男人，却好像作为一个脆弱的儿童。我的工作，是护送他到地铁站，这名生活已被残酷地打乱的男子，小心翼翼的握着我的手，祝福我未来的幸福。

而且只要我还活着，我会记得，走一个空荡荡的的走廊，突然到，从背后的门里，传来我从未听过的尖叫的痛苦和恐惧。门打开，研究员探出她的头告诉我，为坐在她旁边的青年男子，调一杯热饮料。她刚刚给他的消息：为了是在报复他自己对他的国家的政权的批评，他的母亲已被捕及执行枪决。

在我20多岁的时候，我工作的每一天，都在提醒我是令人难以置信的幸运。生活在一个民选政府的国家，律师和公开审理，是所有人的基本人权。

每一天，我看到更多的有关的恶人的证据，为了获得或维持权力，对自己的同胞犯下的暴行。我开始做噩梦，那些我看到，听到和读到的事情。

在国际特赦组织，我也了解到更多关于人类的善良，在比我以前想象的要多。

大赦动员成千上万的人，他们并没有因为他们的信仰而受到折磨或监禁，而为那些遭受这种不幸的人奔走。人类同理心的力量，引发的集体行动，拯救生命，并释放囚犯。个人的福祉和安全有保证的普通百姓，携手合作，大量挽救那些他们不认识，也永远不会见面的人。在这一过程中我微薄的参与，是我富启发性的生活经历。

不同于在这个星球上任何其他的动物，人类可以学习和理解没有经历过的东西。他们可以设身处地思考。

当然，这是一种能力，就像我的虚构的魔法世界，这是道德上中立的。一个人可能会利用这种能力去操纵，或控制，也有很多人选择去了解或同情。

很多人一点也不喜欢行使他们的想象力。他们选择留在他们自己的舒适的范围内，从来没有麻烦的去想想如果自己出生在别处。他们拒绝听到尖叫声，或笼子里的偷窥；他们可以封闭他们内心，只要痛苦不触及他们的个人，他们可以拒绝去了解。

我可能会受到诱惑，去嫉妒那样生活的人，除了我不认为他们会比我做更少的噩梦。选择住在狭窄的空间，可导致某种形式的精神广场恐惧症，并给自己带来恐怖。我认为不愿想像看到更多的怪物，是可怕的。

更甚的是，那些选择不同情的，可能激活真正的怪兽。通过我们自己的冷漠和它勾结，犯下彻底的罪恶。

我18岁的时候，在古典文学中的学到的很多事情，得到的那些我不能界定的东西，如希腊作家普鲁塔克所说：我们内心的实现将改变外在现实。

这是一个惊人的声明，但在我们生活的每一天无数次被证实。我们与外部世界的有不可推卸的关联，事实上，我们以我们的存在接触的其他人的生命。

但哈佛大学的2008级的毕业生们，多少人可能去触及其他人的生命？你的智力，您的辛勤工作能力，你已经获得了和受到的教育，给你独特的地位，和独特的责任。即使您的国籍把你与别人分开了，你们绝大部份属于世界上仅存的超级大国。你们表决的方式，你们生活的方式，你们抗议的方式，你们给你们的政府带来的压力，具有的影响超出了您们的国界。这是你们的特权，和你的负担。

如果您选择使用您的地位和影响力，去代表那些没有发言权的人，发出声音;如果您不仅选择权力去证明自己，也去帮助那些没有权力的人;如果你有不如你的生活设身处地的想一想，那么，您的存在，不仅成为你家庭骄傲，而是无数因为你的帮助他们的日常生活发生好的改变的人的骄傲。我们不需要魔法来改变这个世界，我们已经拥有了所需要的所有的力量，我们有能力想象会更好。

我的演讲也接近尾声了。对你们，我有最后一个希望，也是我21岁就要一直在思考的。毕业那天的坐在我身边的朋友将是我终身的朋友。他们是我的孩子的教父母，是我在遇到麻烦是可以求助的人，是当我使用过他们的姓名作为食死徒的名字而不会起诉我的朋友。在我们的毕业的时候，我们因为无边的爱联系在一起，我们有共同的永远无法再来的经历，当然，如果我们中的任何人竞选首相，那些今天的照片那将是极为宝贵的。

所以，今天我可以给你们的，没有比同伴的友谊更好的祝福了。明天，我希望即使你还记得不只是名字，你还记得那些塞内加（卢西乌斯•安奈乌斯，罗马斯多葛派哲学家），我在退出职业生涯后，另一在旧罗马的古典文学中搜索的古老智慧：

生活就像是故事一样：不在乎长度，而在于质量，这才是最问题的关键。祝福大家生活愉快。非常感谢大家。

J·K·罗琳在哈佛大学08年毕业典礼上的演讲raw

第一篇：J·K·罗琳在哈佛大学08年毕业典礼上的演讲raw

第二篇：J·K·罗琳在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲

第三篇：J·K·罗琳在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲

第四篇：双语J·K·罗琳在哈佛大学08年毕业典礼上的演讲

第五篇：JK罗琳在哈佛毕业典礼上的演讲[定稿]

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