J. K. Rowling 哈佛演讲

第一篇：J. K. Rowling 哈佛演讲

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates，福斯特主席，哈佛公司和监察委员会的各位成员，各位老师、家长、全体毕业生们：

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 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 Gryffindors' reunion.首先请允许我说一声谢谢。哈佛不仅给了我无上的荣誉，连日来为这个演讲经受的恐惧和紧张，更令我减肥成功。这真是一个双赢的局面。现在我要做的就是深呼吸几下，眯着眼睛看看前面的大红横幅，安慰自己正在世界上最大的魔法学院聚会上。

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.发表毕业演说是一个巨大的责任，至少在我回忆自己当年的毕业典礼前是这么认为的。那天做演讲的是英国著名的哲学家Baroness Mary Warnock，对她演讲的回忆，对我写今天的演讲稿，产生了极大的帮助，因为我不记得她说过的任何一句话了。这个发现让我释然，让我不再担心我可能会无意中影响你放弃在商业，法律或政治上的大好前途，转而醉心于成为一个快乐的魔法师。

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 to self-improvement.你们看，如果在若干年后你们还记得“快乐的魔法师”这个笑话，那就证明我已经超越了Baroness Mary Warnock。建立可实现的目标——这是提高自我的第一步。

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.实际上，我为今天应该和大家谈些什么绞尽了脑汁。我问自己什么是我希望早在毕业典礼上就该了解的，而从那时起到现在的21年间，我又得到了什么重要的启示。

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。在这美好的一天，当我们一起庆祝你们取得学业成就的时刻，我希望告诉你们失败有什么样的益处；在你们即将迈向“现实生活”的道路之际，我还要褒扬想象力的重要性。

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but bear with me.这些似乎是不切实际或自相矛盾的选择，但请先容我讲完。

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.回顾21岁刚刚毕业时的自己，对于今天42岁的我来说，是一个稍微不太舒服的经历。可以说，我人生的前一部分，一直挣扎在自己的雄心和身边的人对我的期望之间。

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.我一直深信，自己唯一想做的事情，就是写小说。不过，我的父母，他们都来自贫穷的背景，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，根本不足以让我支付按揭，或者取得足够的养老金。

I know the irony strikes like with the force of a cartoon anvil now, but„ 我现在明白反讽就像用卡通铁砧去打击你，但...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.他们希望我去拿个职业学位，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：我改学现代语言。可是等到父母一走开，我立刻放弃了德语而报名学习古典文学。

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 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，他们可能是在我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宽敞的卫生间。

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.我想澄清一下：我不会因为父母的观点，而责怪他们。埋怨父母给你指错方向是有一个时间段的。当你成长到可以控制自我方向的时候，你就要自己承担责任了。尤其是，我不会因为父母希望我不要过穷日子，而责怪他们。他们一直很贫穷，我后来也一度很穷，所以我很理解他们。贫穷并不是一种高贵的经历，它带来恐惧、压力、有时还有绝望，它意味着许许多多的羞辱和艰辛。靠自己的努力摆脱贫穷，确实可以引以自豪，但贫穷本身只有对傻瓜而言才是浪漫的。

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.我在你们这个年龄，最害怕的不是贫穷，而是失败。

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.我在您们这么大时，明显缺乏在大学学习的动力，我花了太久时间在咖啡吧写故事，而在课堂的时间却很少。我有一个通过考试的诀窍，并且数年间一直让我在大学生活和同龄人中不落人后。

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak.Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.我不想愚蠢地假设，因为你们年轻、有天份，并且受过良好的教育，就从来没有遇到困难或心碎的时刻。拥有才华和智慧，从来不会使人对命运的反复无常有所准备；我也不会假设大家坐在这里冷静地满足于自身的优越感。

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.相反，你们是哈佛毕业生的这个事实，意味着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达到很高的高度了。

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.最终，我们所有人都必须自己决定什么算作失败，但如果你愿意，世界是相当渴望给你一套标准的。所以我承认命运的公平，从任何传统的标准看，在我毕业仅仅七年后的日子里，我的失败达到了史诗般空前的规模：短命的婚姻闪电般地破裂，我又失业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。当年父母和我自己对未来的担忧，现在都变成了现实。按照惯常的标准来看，我也是我所知道的最失败的人。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.现在，我不打算站在这里告诉你们，失败是有趣的。那段日子是我生命中的黑暗岁月，我不知道它是否代表童话故事里需要历经的磨难，更不知道自己还要在黑暗中走多久。很长一段时间里，前面留给我的只是希望，而不是现实。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.那么为什么我要谈论失败的好处呢？因为失败意味着剥离掉那些不必要的东西。我因此不再伪装自己、远离自我，而重新开始把所有精力放在对我最重要的事情上。如果不是没有在其他领域成功过，我可能就不会找到，在一个我确信真正属于的舞台上取得成功的决心。我获得了自由，因为最害怕的虽然已经发生了，但我还活着，我仍然有一个我深爱的女儿，我还有一个旧打字机和一个很大的想法。所以困境的谷底，成为我重建生活的坚实基础。

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.你们可能永远没有达到我经历的那种失败程度，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，除非你生活的万般小心，而那也意味着你没有真正在生活了。无论怎样，有些失败还是注定地要发生。

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，这是我从考试中没有得到过的。失败让我看清自己，这也是我通过其他方式无法体会的。我发现，我比自己认为的，要有更强的意志和决心。我还发现，我拥有比宝石更加珍贵的朋友。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.从挫折中获得智慧、变得坚强，意味着你比以往任何时候都更有能力生存。只有在逆境来临的时候，你才会真正认识你自己，了解身边的人。这种了解是真正的财富，虽然是用痛苦换来的，但比我以前得到的任何资格证书都有用。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.如果给我一部时间机器，我会告诉21岁的自己，人的幸福在于知道生活不是一份漂亮的成绩单，你的资历、简历，都不是你的生活，虽然你会碰到很多与我同龄或更老一点的人今天依然还在混淆两者。生活是艰辛的，复杂的，超出任何人的控制能力，而谦恭地了解这一点，将使你历经沧桑后能够更好的生存。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.对于第二个主题的选择——想象力的重要性——你们可能会认为是因为它对我重建生活起到了帮助，但事实并非完全如此。虽然我愿誓死捍卫睡前要给孩子讲故事的价值观，我对想象力的理解已经有了更广泛的含义。想象力不仅仅是人类设想还不存在的事物这种独特的能力，为所有发明和创新提供源泉，它还是人类改造和揭露现实的能力，使我们同情自己不曾经受的他人苦难。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.其中一个影响最大的经历发生在我写哈利波特之前，为我随后写书提供了很多想法。这些想法成形于我早期的工作经历，在20多岁时，尽管我可以在午餐时间里悄悄写故事，可为了付房租，我做的主要工作是在伦敦总部的大赦国际研究部门。

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.在我的小办公室，我看到了人们匆匆写的信件，它们是从极权主义政权被偷送出来的。那些人冒着被监禁的危险，告知外面的世界他们那里正在发生的事情。我看到了那些无迹可寻的人的照片，它们是被那些绝望的家人和朋友送来的。我看过拷问受害者的证词和被害的照片。我打开过手写的目击证词，描述绑架和强奸犯的审判和处决。

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 who they had left behind.我有很多的同事是前政治犯，他们已离开家园流离失所，或逃亡流放，因为他们敢于怀疑政府、独立思考。来我们办公室的访客，包括那些前来提供信息，或想设法知道那些被迫留下的同志发生了什么事的人。

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.我将永远不会忘记一个非洲酷刑的受害者，一名当时还没有我大的年轻男子，他因在故乡的经历而精神错乱。在摄像机前讲述被残暴地摧残的时候，他颤抖失控。他比我高一英尺，却看上去像一个脆弱的儿童。我被安排随后护送他到地铁站，这名生活已被残酷地打乱的男子，小心翼翼地握着我的手，祝我未来生活幸福。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.只要我活着，我还会记得，在一个空荡荡的的走廊，突然从背后的门里，传来我从未听过的痛苦和恐惧的尖叫。门打开了，调查员探出头请求我，为坐在她旁边的青年男子，调一杯热饮料。她刚刚给他的消息是，为了报复他对国家政权的批评，他的母亲已经被捕并执行了枪决。

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.在我20多岁的那段日子，每一天的工作，都在提醒我自己是多么幸运。生活在一个民选政府的国家，依法申述与公开审理，是所有人的权利。

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.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 inspiring experiences of my life.大赦动员成千上万没有因为个人信仰而受到折磨或监禁的人，去为那些遭受这种不幸的人奔走。人类同理心的力量，引发集体行动，拯救生命，解放囚犯。个人的福祉和安全有保证的普通百姓，携手合作，大量挽救那些他们素不相识，也许永远不会见面的人。我用自己微薄的力量参与了这一过程，也获得了更大的启发。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.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未曾经历过的东西。他们可以将心比心、设身处地的理解他人。

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.当然，这种能力，就像在我虚构的魔法世界里一样，在道德上是中立的。一个人可能会利用这种能力去操纵控制，也有人选择去了解同情。

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.而很多人选择不去使用他们的想象力。他们选择留在自己舒适的世界里，从来不愿花力气去想想如果生在别处会怎样。他们可以拒绝去听别人的尖叫，看一眼囚禁的笼子；他们可以封闭自己的内心，只要痛苦不触及个人，他们可以拒绝去了解。

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.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 world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing.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 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.如果你选择利用自己的地位和影响，去为那些没有发言权的人发出声音；如果你选择不仅与强者为伍，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 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.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: 所以今天我可以给你们的，没有比拥有知己更好的祝福了。明天，我希望即使你们不记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.

第二篇：J.K.Rowling演讲词

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 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.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 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 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.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.

第三篇：比尔盖茨哈佛演讲 全文

比尔盖茨哈佛演讲 全文

Remarks of Bill Gates Harvard Commencement June 7, 2007

President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, parents, and especially, the graduates:

I’ve been waiting more than 30 years to say this: ―Dad, I always told you

I’d come back and get my degree.‖ I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor.I’ll be changing my job next year … and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume.I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees.For my part, I’m just happy that the Crimson has called me ―Harvard’s most successful dropout.‖ I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class … I did the best of everyone who failed.But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school.I’m a bad influence.That’s why I was invited to speak at your graduation.If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be

here today.Harvard was just a phenomenal experience for me.Academic life was fascinating.I used to sit in on lots of classes I hadn’t even signed up for.And dorm life was terrific.I lived up at Radcliffe, in Currier House.There were always lots of people in my dorm room late at night discussing things, because everyone knew I didn’t worry about getting up in the morning.That’s how I came to be the leader of the anti-social group.We clung to each other as a way of validating our rejection of all those social people.Radcliffe was a great place to live.There were more women up there, and most of the guys were science-math types.That combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean.This is where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn’t guarantee success.One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975, when I made a call from Currier House to a company in Albuquerque that had begun making the world’s first personal computers.I offered to sell them software.I worried that they would realize I was just a student in a dorm and hang up on me.Instead they said: ―We’re not quite ready, come see usin a month,‖ which was a good thing, because we hadn’t written the software yet.From that moment, I worked day and night on this little extra credit project that marked the end of my college education and the beginning of a remarkable journey

with Microsoft.What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of so much energy and intelligence.It could be exhilarating, intimidating, sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging.It was an amazing privilege – and though I left early, I was transformed by my years at Harvard, the friendships I

made, and the ideas I worked on.But taking a serious look back … I do have one big regret.I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world – the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn

millions of people to lives of despair.I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics.I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences.But humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity.Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity –

reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country.And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing

countries.It took me decades to find out.You graduates came to Harvard at a different time.You know more about the world’s inequities than the classes that came before.In your years here, I hope you’ve had a chance to think about how – in this age of accelerating technology – we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them.Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause – and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives.Where would you spend it?

For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have.During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who were dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country.Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever.One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a million kids each year – none of them in

the United States.We were shocked.We had just assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them.But it did not.For under a

dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just weren’t being

delivered.If you believe that every life has equal value, it’s revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not.We said to ourselves: ―This can’t be true.But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving.‖

So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it.We asked: ―How could the world let these children die?‖

The answer is simple, and harsh.The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it.So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and

no voice in the system.But you and I have both.We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop amore creative capitalism – if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities.We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the

people who pay the taxes.If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world.This task is open-ended.It can never be finished.But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change

the world.I am optimistic that we can do this, but I talk to skeptics who claim there is no hope.They say: ―Inequity has been with us since the beginning, and will be with us till the end – because people just …don’t … care.‖ I completely

disagree.I believe we have more caring than we know what to do with.All of us here in this Yard, at one time or another, have seen human tragedies that broke our hearts, and yet we did nothing – not because we didn’t care, but because we didn’t know what to do.If we had known how to help, we

would have acted.The barrier to change is not too little caring;it is too much complexity.To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact.But complexity blocks all three steps.Even with the advent of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is still a complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problems.When an airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference.They promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar crashes in the future.But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say: ―Of all the people in the world who died today from preventable causes, one half of one percent of them were on this plane.We’re determined to do everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of the one half of one percent.‖

The bigger problem is not the plane crash, but the millions of preventable

deaths.We don’t read much about these deaths.The media covers what’s new –and millions of people dying is nothing new.So it stays in the background, where it’s easier to ignore.But even when we do see it or read about it, it’s difficult to keep our eyes on the problem.It’s hard to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we don’t know how to help.And so

we look away.If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution.Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring.If we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization or individual asks ―How can I help?,‖ then we can get action – and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted.But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares — and that makes it hard for their caring

to matter.Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have — whether it’s something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bed net.The AIDS epidemic offers an example.The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease.The highest-leverage approach is prevention.The ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with a single dose.So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund vaccine research.But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand – and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior.Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again.This is the pattern.The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working – and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century– which is to surrender to

complexity and quit.The final step – after seeing the problem and finding an approach – is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and failures so

that others learn from your efforts.You have to have the statistics, of course.You have to be able to show that a program is vaccinating millions more children.You have to be able to show a decline in the number of children dying from these diseases.This is essential not just to improve the program, but also to help draw more investment from business and government.But if you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show more than numbers;you have to convey the human impact of the work – so people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected.I remember going to Davos some years back and sitting on a global health panel that was discussing ways to save millions of lives.Millions!Think of the thrill of saving just one person’s life – then multiply that by millions.… Yet this was the most boring panel I’ve ever been on – ever.So boring even I couldn’t

bear it.What made that experience especially striking was that I had just come from an event where we were introducing version 13 of some piece of software, and we had people jumping and shouting with excitement.I love getting people excited about software – but why can’t we generate even more excitement for

saving lives?

You can’t get people excited unless you can help them see and feel the impact.And how you do that – is a complex question.Still, I’m optimistic.Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but the new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us forever.They are new – they can help us make the most of our caring –and that’s why the

future can be different from the past.The defining and ongoing innovations of this age – biotechnology, the computer, the Internet – give us a chance we’ve never had before to end extreme poverty and end death from preventable disease.Sixty years ago, George Marshall came to this commencement and announced a plan to assist the nations of post-war Europe.He said: ―I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation.It is virtually impossible at this distance to grasp at all the real

significance of the situation.‖ Thirty years after Marshall made his address, as my class graduated without me, technology was emerging that would make the world smaller, more open, more visible, less distant.The emergence of low-cost personal computers gave rise to a powerful network that has transformed opportunities for learning and communicating.The magical thing about this network is not just that it collapses distance and makes everyone your neighbor.It also dramatically increases the number of brilliant minds we can have working together on the same problem – and that scales up the rate of innovation to a staggering degree.At the same time, for every person in the world who has access to this technology, five people don’t.That means many creative minds are left out of this discussion--smart people with practical intelligence and relevant experience who don’t have the technology to hone their talents or contribute

their ideas to the world.We need as many people as possible to have access to this technology, because these advances are triggering a revolution in what human beings can do for one another.They are making it possible not just for national governments, but for universities, corporations, smaller organizations, and even individuals to see problems, see approaches, and measure the impact of their efforts to address the hunger, poverty, and desperation George Marshall

spoke of 60 years ago.Members of the Harvard Family: Here in the Yard is one of the great collections of intellectual talent in the world.What for?

There is no question that the faculty, the alumni, the students, and the benefactors of Harvard have used their power to improve the lives of people here and around the world.But can we do more? Can Harvard dedicate its intellect to improving the lives of people who will never even hear its name? Let me make a request of the deans and the professors – the intellectual leaders here at Harvard: As you hire new faculty, award tenure, review curriculum, and determine degree requirements, please ask yourselves:

Should our best minds be dedicated to solving our biggest problems?

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?

Should the world’s most privileged people learn about the lives of the

world’s least privileged? These are not rhetorical questions – you will answer with your policies.My mother, who was filled with pride the day I was admitted here –never stopped pressing me to do more for others.A few days before my wedding, she hosted a bridal event, at which she read aloud a letter about marriage that she had written to Melinda.My mother was very ill with cancer at the time, but she saw one more opportunity to deliver her message, and at the close of the letter she said: ―From those to whom much is given, much is expected.‖ 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.In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the graduates here to take on an issue – a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it.If you make it the focus of your career, that would be phenomenal.But you don’t have to do that to make an impact.For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut

through them.Don’t let complexity stop you.Be activists.Take on the big inequities.It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time.As you leave Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had.You have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have.And with that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change with very little effort.You have more than we had;you must start sooner, and carry on longer.Knowing what you know, how could you not?

And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy.I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world’s deepest inequities … on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but

their humanity.Good luck.过去30年里，我一直在等待着说这样一句话，―父亲，我一直对您说我将拿

到自己的学位。‖。

我要感谢哈佛及时地授予我学位。我明年要换工作(注：指全力投入比尔及梅琳达基金会的慈善工作)，有了学位我的简历看起来会更好一些。

祝贺今天的哈佛毕业生都直接获得了学位。哈佛校报称我为―哈佛历史上最成功的辍学生‖，这让我感到非常高兴。当我面对同一届毕业生时，我可以对他们说，―我是失败者中最为成功的。‖

众所周知，当初史蒂夫·鲍尔默(Steve Ballmer)从哈佛商学院退学，我是始作俑者。我并不是一个好榜样，这也是我受邀在你们的毕业典礼上发表演讲的原因。如果你们都像我一样辍学，那今天就没有人会坐在这里。

对我来说，在哈佛的经历是一段难忘的体验。校园生活总是让人留恋，我曾经上了很多根本没有注册的课。当然，宿舍的生活并不太美好。当时我住在拉德克里夫学院，同一宿舍的很多人经常讨论问题到深夜，因为他们都知道我并不担心早上起不来床。正是在这样的环境下，我成长为反社会集团的领导者。

拉德克里夫是一个适合生活的地方。那时候这里有很多女孩子，而且大多数男生都属于较为死板的类型，因此我的机会很多，你们都知道我的意思。不过，正是在这里，我明白了拥有机会并不一定能获得成功的道理。(笑)

微软的起步

在哈佛的日子里，最令我难忘的一天是在1975年1月。当时我给Albuquerque的一家公司打了电话，这家公司已经开始生产全世界首批个人计算

机，我希望向它们销售软件。

最开始我忐忑不安，因为担心这家公司会因为我是学生而挂断电话。但幸运的是，它们没有这样做，而是对我说，―我们还没有准备好，一个月内来我们公司看看吧。‖这对我来说是一个好消息，因为我们当时还没有完成软件开发。从那一刻起，我夜以继日地工作。这一项目虽然价值不大，但它标志着我大学生

活的结束，以及微软的起步。

哈佛给我留下印象最深的是所有人都活力十足，而且非常聪明。在哈佛的日子有快乐，也有失落，但总是充满挑战。尽管我很早离开了哈佛，但那几年已经足以改变我。在这里，我结识了很多朋友，并想出了很多创意。

最大遗憾

认真回顾过去，我确实有着一大遗憾。

当我离开哈佛时，我并没有意识到这个世界存在着可怕的不平等现象。人们享受的医疗、保健和机会严重不均，很多人生活在绝望的边缘。

我在哈佛学到了很多东西，包括经济和政治方面的新思想，但体会最深的还是科学的不断进步。

可是，人类的最大进步并不体现在发现和发明上，而是如何利用它们来消除不平等。不管通过何种方式，民主、公共教育、医疗保健、或者是经济合作，消除不平等才是人类的最大成就。

当我离开校园时，并不知道美国有数百万的青少年享受不到受教育的机会，我也不知道在发展中国家有数百万人生活在极度的贫困之中。

我用了数十年的时间才明白了这些。

你们和我完全不同，你们更了解这个世界上存在的不平等。我希望你们过去几年都曾经认真想过，应当如何应对这样的不平等，以及如何解决这些问题。

假如，如果你愿意付出每周几小时时间和每月几美元，希望这些时间和钱能拯救更多的人，改善更多人的生活。那么，你会将时间和钱花在哪里呢？

对于梅琳达(注：盖茨之妻)和我来说，也存在着同样的问题：应该怎样做，才能让我们拥有的资源给最多的人带来好处呢？

在讨论这一问题的过程中，梅琳达和我看到一篇关于疾病每年在发展中国家杀死数百万儿童的新闻。这些疾病包括麻疹、疟疾、肺炎、B型肝炎和黄热病，它们在美国已经受到严密的控制。此外，一种我们从未听说的疾病——轮状病毒每年要杀死50万儿童，但其中没有一名美国儿童。

我们感到非常震惊。既然每年有如此多的儿童因为这些疾病而死，那么就应当将研发新药、拯救生命放在首位，但事实并非如此。

人人生而平等

如果你们相信―人人生而平等‖，当了解到人们认为有些生命值得拯救，而有些生命不值得时，也会感到震惊。我们会对自己说：―这并不是真的。但是，如果它是真的，我们就应当努力改变这种情况。‖

因此，我们开始了这样的工作，我们相信别人也会这样做。有时我们会感到不解：这个世界为什么会允许那么多的孩子死亡呢？

答案很简单，也很残酷。拯救这些孩子的生命并不会带来市场回报，政府也没有为此提供补贴。这些孩子之所以会死亡，主要因为他们的父母没有强大的市场力量，甚至没有话语权。

但是我和你们都有。

我们今天坐在这里，就在这一时间，世界各地仍在上演着人间惨剧。这让我们感到心碎，我们之所以没有采取任何行动，并不是我们没有同情心，而是

因为我们不知道如何去做。

我们面临的障碍并不是缺乏同情心，实际情况要复杂的多。

要将同情心转化为行动，我们需要看到问题，找到解决方案，并了解最终结果。但实际情况是，我们很难做到这三点。

即使有了互联网和24小时新闻播报，我们仍然很难真正地了解问题。如果一架飞机坠毁，官方会立即举办新闻发布会。他们将会承诺展开调查，确定事故原因，并保证今后不会出现同样的情况。

但实际情况却是，飞机失事死亡人数还不足全世界每天因可避免原因死

亡人数的0.5%。

更严重的问题并不是飞机失事，而是全球数以百万计的可避免死亡。

事实上，我们很难获得同后者相关的消息。新闻媒体希望获得新消息，而数以百万计的人因贫穷和疾病死亡并不是新消息。因此，这样的消息很难出现在媒体报道中，从而更容易被人们所忽略。另一方面，即使我们看到这样的报道，也不太情愿仔细阅读。因为情况过于复杂，我们不知道如何提供帮助。在这种情况下，我们大多数情况会将视线转向其它方向。

看到问题只是第一步，我们要做的下一步是降低问题的复杂度，并找到

解决方案。

如果我们想让自己的同情心发挥作用，找到解决方案非常必要。因为只有这样，我们才能确保同情心没有被浪费。当然，由于大部分问题都很复杂，要

找到解决方案并不容易。

那么，我们又应当如何降低复杂度，找到解决方案呢？我认为可以分为四个阶段：确定一个目标、发现最有效的方式、为这种方式找到理想的技术、以及开发最优秀的应用，例如用于治病的药品。

我们要做的最后一步就是衡量工作的成果，并与他人共享我们的成功与失

败。

第四篇：2014哈佛毕业典礼演讲

感谢凯蒂，感谢佛斯特校长、哈佛大学部成员、监事会、还有迎接我回校园的所有教职员工、校友和学生！能来到这里我很激动，不仅是因为我能在哈佛大学每363届毕业典礼上对优秀毕业生和校友讲话，更因为我能站在欧普拉去年曾站的相同地方！omg！

下面开始进行我们的首要任务，为2014届毕业生热烈鼓掌，这是他们赢得的。

毕业生都很兴奋，但这几周同时肯定也让他们有些精疲力竭。家长们，我指的不是期末考试，而是四年级运动会，最后一次舞会以及午夜巡游。总之，今年的校园很让人激动。

哈佛橄榄球队连续第七次击败耶鲁，男子篮球队连续两年进入到了ncaa赛事第二轮，还有男子壁球队获得全国冠军。谁会想哈佛竟然有这么强大的运动能力。不久，就会有人问，你们什么时候学术能力能够超过体育能力？

我个人同哈佛的联系开始于1964年，我从约翰霍普金斯大学毕业，被录取到这里的商学院，你们感谢在想、或是正在同旁边的人窃窃私语说：他怎么就进了哈佛的商学院，毕竟他的学术成绩这么出色，总能成为班上排名位于前半部分的学生，我不知道，比我自己更惊讶的可能就演唱会有我的教授了。无论如何，今天我又回到了剑桥。

我注意到，这里同我当学生时有些变化，广场附近我原来很喜欢的elise三文治餐厅现在成了一家墨西哥卷饼店，原来提供美味啤酒和香肠的wursthaus变成现在的工艺美味酒吧，我不知道这是什么玩意，原来的霍利奥克中心现在改名叫史密斯校园中心，你难道不讨厌校友用自己的名字命名所有东西吗？

不过也有好消息，哈佛保留了五十年前我刚进校时的优良传统，仍然是美国最具声望的大学，同其他伟大的大学样，它位于美国民主实验的心脏地带，哈佛的目的不只是幸知识，还包括增进我们关于国家的理想。各种背景，各种信仰，探索各种问题的人都能在伟大的大学中自由开放的学习知识并探讨想法。今天我想跟大家谈谈这种自由对于每个人而言是多么重要，无论我们多么强烈反对别人的观点，对他人想法的容忍以及表达自身言论的自由是伟大大学中不可侵害的价值，两者结合在一起构成了维持民主社会根基的神圣信赖。但我要告诉大家，这种信赖，是很脆弱的，特别是在君主、暴君、多数的专横倾向下。

最近，这种倾向经常再现在我们的大学校园和社会中，这是个坏消息，而且很不幸的是，哈佛以及我自己的城市纽约也都见证过这种趋势。首先，在纽约市你可能记得，几年前有些人强烈反对在世贸中心的旧址几个街区远的专访建 一座清真寺，这是一个情感的问题。民意调查显示，超过2/3的美国人都反对在那里建清真寺，即使是反诽谤联盟，这一被公认为全车宗教自由最热情的捍卫者，也毫不掩饰对该项目表示反对，反对者进行着反对和示威遣责开发者，要求市政府停止这项工程这是他们的权利，我们保护他们的搞辩权，但他们的观点绝对是错误的，我们拒绝屈从。政府如果单独选 出某种宗教阻止，而且只阻止在特定地点建立宗教活动场所，这绝对是和伟大美国的道德原则背道而驰的，这应该是宪法保护所不允许的。

美国这个五十州联邦依赖于两大价值的结合：自由和宽容。正是这两大价值的结合，让一个不信神的国家，但事实上，没有任何国家比美利坚合众国更愿意保护人类的各种信仰和哲学，不过这种保护需要依赖于我们持续的警觉，我们倾向于认为政教分离的原则已经确立，实际上没有而且永远不会，我们需要坚决地拥护它，确保法律条文下规定的平等，对于每个人都是平等垢。

如果你希望按照自己希望的那样进行宗教活动，按照希望的那样发表言论，同希望的人结婚，你就必须宽容我像这样的自由，我做事可能会冒犯你，你可能觉得我的行为不道德或是非正义，但你不能用自身没有的限制方式来限制我的自由，否则这只会导致不公。我们在自己要

求权利的同时，不能否定其他人的相同权利，对于城市是这样，对于大学也同样是这样。学术压迫的势力正在抬头。自1950年以来，这是最为严重的。在我小时候，美国参议员，当然~你们可以鼓掌~~~在我小时候，美国参议员乔麦卡锡问：“你现在是不是，曾经是不是~~？”他试图压制和定罪，那些赞同哪怕在当时都已经很失败的经济体制的人，麦卡锡的红色恐惧让数以千计的人失去了生命，他害怕的是什么呢，是一种思想，也就是共产主义。

他和一些人认为这种思想很危险。不过他至少在一噗上是正确的，思想确实危险。思想能够改变社会，思想能够颠覆传统，思想能够开启革命。这就是为什么历史上，那些权贵要抑制思想、避免这些思想威胁到他们的权力、宗教、意识形态以及地位。苏格拉底和伽利略是这样，纳尔逊曼德拉和瓦茨拉夫哈维尔是这样，艾未来、造反猫咪乐队以及在伊朗制作快乐视频的孩子们也是这样。压抑自由言论表达是人类本性上的弱点，每次出现时我们都需要同它进行斗争，结思想的不宽容，无论是自由还是保守派思想，都同个人权利和自由社会背道而驰的。以上这此自然也适用于伟大大学和项尖学者。大学校园正淬着一咱观点，我想哈佛也不例外，认为学者只有在研究符合特定正义观念的前提下，才应获得资助。这种观点可以用一个词来概括：审查，这是麦卡锡主义的当代表现，想想这有多么讽剌。1950年代，右翼试图掏左翼思想，而今天在很多大学校园自由派则开始抑制保守派思想。保守派教职员工甚至就快成为濒危物种，这种情况尤其在常春藤盟校最为突出。2012年总统选举中，根据联邦选举委员会数据，常春藤盟校教职员工有96%的捐赠都给了巴拉克奥巴马，前苏联政治局的差异都比常春藤盟校捐赠大。这一统计数字发人深思。虽然我也支持奥巴马总统的再次当选，但我认为任何派别都不应该垄断真理，或让上帝总站在它那一边，96%常春藤盟校捐赠者偏向于某一位候选人，这就不得不让人怀疑，这些大学中的学生是否获得了他们应当获得的观点多样性，性别、人种、取向多样性都很重要。但一所大学还应当有政治多样性，否则就称不上伟大。实际上，为教授提供终生教职就是为保证他们能够自由地进行研究，而不用害怕研究主题同学校政治和社会规范不一致。最初的终身教职如果要继续存在，就必须保护同自由派规范相冲突的保守派思想，否则，大学研究和进行研究的教授就会失去信誉。

伟大的大学不应当戴有党派的有色眼镜，教育不应当成为自由主义的教育，大学的角色不应当是宣扬某一种意识形态而应当是为学者和学生提供问题研究和辩论的中立论坛，不让天平朝任何一个方向倾斜，不抑制不受欢迎的观点。因此，要求学者和毕业典礼发言者，遵循特定的政治标准会侵蚀整个大学的存在的意义。

今年春，很让人不安的是，很多大学毕业典礼演讲者都被撤销了，甚至连邀请函都被撤回了，仅仅因为学生甚至资深教职团队和管理者的反对。我很吃惊，学生姑且不论，其他人显然应当更明事理一些。这发生在布兰代斯、哈弗福德、罗格斯、史密斯等院校。去年，还发生在斯沃斯莫尔和约翰霍普金斯。我很遗憾，这些例子中，自由派都希望让不喜欢的声音无法发出，政治上不被其认同的人会被拒绝授予荣誉学位，这太让人愤怒了。我们不应当让它继续发生，如果一所大学在邀请一位毕业典礼演讲嘉宾时还要因为政治立场再三斟酌，审查和一致这些自由的死敌就会胜出，很悲哀的是，并不只有毕业季的演讲嘉宾会被审查，去年秋天，我还在担任市长的时候，市警察局长受邀到另一所常春藤盟校进行演讲，结果他的演讲却因学生大专抗议而无法进行。比起让讨论沉默，大学的意义不应当是激起讲座吗？学生到底害怕听到什么，为什么管理者不采取措施避免暴民干扰演讲。难道其他想听演讲的学生，机会 就应当被这样剥夺吗？我敢肯定，今天毕业的学生肯定都读过，约翰斯图尔物密尔的——论自由。请允许我将其中的一小段读给大家听：强迫别人不能发表意见的邪恶及是对整个人类的掠夺，对后代人类的掠夺，对不同意于那个意见的人掠夺更多”，他继续首“假如那意见是对的，那么他们是被剥夺了以错误换真理的机会；假如那意见是错的，那么他们是

失掉了一个差不多同样大的利益，那就是从真理与错误冲突中产一出来的对于真理的更加清楚的认识和更加生动的印象”，密尔如果知道大学学生强迫别不发表意见肯定会痛心疾首，密尔如果知道连教职团队都通常成为毕业演讲审查活动的一部分，肯定会更加痛心疾首。如果是终身教职教授强迫观点同自己不一对致的发言者不发表言论，那就真的是莫大讽剌了。特别是发生在东北的那些抗议，自称的自由宽容显得尤为伪善。不过很高兴的是，哈佛没有陷入这些毕业典礼审查之中，否则的话，科罗拉多州参议员迈克尔约翰斯顿昨天就没有机会在教育学院发表演讲了。不少学生号召管理层撤回对约翰斯顿的邀请，因为他们反对他的一些教育政策。不过佛斯特校长和赖安院长都非常坚定，赖安院长写信给这些学生说：“观点存在分歧”在我看来，这引起分歧应当经过探讨和辩论，受到挑战和质疑，同时也应受到尊敬和庆贺。他完全是正确的，他以自身的言行为2014届毕业生上最为宝贵的最后一课，作为约翰霍普金斯大学前任主席，我坚信一所大学的职责并不是教学生思考什么，而是教学生如何思考。这就需要倾听不同意见，不带偏见的衡量各种观点，冷静思考不同意见中是否也有可取的内容。如果教职员工做不到这一点，学校管理者就有责任介入俦解决这一问题，否则的话，学生毕业时就会封闭自己的耳朵和思维。大学也就辜负了学生和社会的信任。如果想知道这会导致什么，看看华盛顿就知道了。在华盛顿，我国面临的所有重大问题，包括国家安全、经济、环境、医疗等问题，两党在处理所有这些问题时，都没有考虑协作，而是看谁声音更大，以此压倒对方，试图抑制和破坏同自己意识形态不相符的调研结果。大学对这种模式模仿得越鑫，我们的社会就会变得越糟糕。我来举一些例子，数十年来，国会都禁止养病控制中心进行枪支暴力的研究，最近，国会又对国立卫生研究院颁布禁令，你需要问问自己，他们在害怕什么。今年，参议院延迟对奥巴马总统提名的卫生局局长佛内科医师维维克莫西进行投票，原因仅仅是他竟敢说，枪支暴力是一大应当处理的公共卫生危机。他真是太大胆了。让我们严肃一些。每天都86位美国人死于枪杀，枪击事件也经常发生在校园中，包括上周发生在对巴巴拉的悲剧。但除此之外，再说什么估计都会被认为是医疗失当。在政治上也同很多大学校园中发生的一样，人们不愿意听到同自己意识形态相抵触的事实，他们害怕它们，而且没有什么比科学证据更他们害怕的了。今年早些时候，南卡罗来纳州对公立学校彩了新标准，州议会竟然禁止人们提到自然选择。这就像是教经常学，却不讲供需，还需要问那个问题。他们害怕什么？答案很显然，同国会议员害怕数据破坏他们的意识形态一样，这些州议会议员害怕科学证据破坏他们的宗教信念。想要证据的人可以考虑这个，南卡罗来纳的一位八女孩给州议会议员写一封信，请他们将犯犸象定为官方州化石，州议员们认为这个主意很好，因为猛犸象化石早在1725年就发现于州里，然后州参议辽通过的法案中却将猛犸象定义为“创造于陆生动物创生的第六天”。这些东西不能胡编乱造。在二十一世纪的美国，教会和国家之间的壁垒仍在受到攻击。这就需要我们来维持两者的分离。很不幸的是，将意识形态和宗教观念强加到桧和进化论的这些民选官员，大多也正是不愿承认气候变化科学证据的那些人。别误解我的意思，科学怀疑主义是有好外的，但是寻找更多的证据的科学怀疑主义同意识形态上拒绝科学证据的顽固不化是有本质判别的。我么多民选官员针对科学都是这种态度。联邦政府没能尽到自己的职责，在大学等机构投资科学研究也就毫不奇怪了。如今，gnp中用于研究和开发的联邦支出百分比是五十余年间最低的，这让世界其它国家有机会赶上，甚至超过美国的科学研究，联邦政府在科学上是不及格的，就像很多州政府一样。我们美国不应该背离科学，内部也不应该相互仇视。回到2014届毕业生典礼上来，你们必须引领前路，每个问题上我们都应当遵循证据的指引、倾听人们的意见。只要我们这样做，就没有什么问题解决不了，没有解不开的死结，没有谈不妥的和解。思想交流越自由，政治多样性就越强，我们就越健康，社会就会越强大。我知道，我并没有按照传统方式做毕业典礼演讲。实际上，这甚至可能让我在人文系的论文答辩上无法通过，不过讲这些麻烦事时总不会轻松。毕业生们，在你们一生中，不要害怕说出自己认为正确的东西，无

论它有多么不受欢迎，特别是在捍卫他人权利的时候。捍卫他人权利，有时比捍卫自身权利更为重要。因为当人们寻求抑制其他人自由的时候，你可能会保持沉默。这样你将会助长这种抑制，哪天你可能也会成为受害者。不要沆瀣一气，不要人云亦云，大声说出来，有力地回击，我敢肯定，你会受到批评，我敢肯定，你还会失去一些朋友，树立一些敌人，但历史会站在你这一边！我们的车家也会因此更加强盛！所有毕业生，都经过努力获得了今天的成就，你们可以很自豪很感激！

今晚，在你们离开这所伟大的大学之前，可能会去香港餐厅来一大碗蝎子碗大杂烩，明天你们需要开始行动焉，让我们的国家和世界对每个人都更自由并永远自由下去！

上帝保佑你们！好运！篇二：雪莉 桑德伯格在哈佛2014年毕业典礼上的演讲

雪莉 桑德伯格在哈佛2014年毕业典礼上的演讲

祝贺所有人，你们做到了。我指的不是大学毕业，而你们成功出席今天的毕业典礼。如果我没记错，某些同学虽然昨晚在香港具厅喝了太多蝎子碗调酒，但今天还是来了。由于天气，这种哈 佛还没有弄清如何控制的现象，还胡同学正在温暖的地方喝热可可饮料。所以，你们有很多为今天出席毕业日活动感到自豪的理由。

祝贺你们的家长，你们花了很多钱，让子女能够说自己是从波士顿附近的这所“小学校”毕业的。还要感谢2014届毕业生邀请我来到这次盛典。这对我价值巨大。看到过往演讲者的名单让人有些敬畏，我肯定没有艾米波乐那么搞笑，但我至少比特雷萨修女更幽默。

25年前，一个当时还不认识，但以后成为我丈夫的男人戴夫，从在你们现在从的地方。23年前，我从在你们现在从的地方。戴夫和我这个周末，带着可爱的子女回校，我们都有相同的三角：哈佛的篮球队太棒了！

站在校园中，回忆泉涌。1987年的秋天，我从迈阿密来到这里，怀揣着伟大的梦想，还胡更夸张的发型。我被分配到哈佛伟大建筑的一座历史丰碑~卡纳迪楼，我是说真的，我当时穿着牛仔裙，白色暖裤袜套，运动鞋，还有一件弗罗里达羊毛衫。因为当时我的父母告诉我，所有人都会认为来自弗里达的人很酷。至少，我们那时没有。

对我而言，哈佛给了我很多第一次，包括我的第一件冬装，在迈阿密没有人需要冬装。我的第一份10页的论文，高中没有人会布置这么长的作业。我第一次得c，这之后，我的学监告诉我说，她在招生委员会，她招我进来不是因为我的学术潜能，而是因为我的品性。我在寄宿学校看到的第一个人，我就觉得这个人会是个大麻烦。我还碰到了第一个名字同整座建筑一样的人，这个人名字叫做萨拉威格尔斯沃斯，她和那栋宿舍楼没有关系，当时我很震惊，知道她和宿舍楼没有关系后，我松了一口气。之后，我还碰到了其他人，弗朗西斯斯特劳斯，詹姆斯威尔斯，杰西卡科学中心b。我第一们爱，第一们让我心碎的人。我第一次认识到自己热爱学习，第一次也是最后一次遇到有在读拉丁文。

我毕业那年，我想好自己以后有什么计划，我要进世界银行，对抗全球贫穷，然后我要去法学院，然后我将非营利机构或政府工作，你们院长也讲了，在明天

我对自己毕业后的数十年规划其实并没错，计划只错在了一年后，就算我算到了自己会在私营企业工作，我肯定算不到自己会在脸谱，那时候没有互联网。那时候马克扎克伯格还在读小学，已经开始穿他的标志性帽衫了。没有太早锁死自己的道路，让我有机会进入改变生活的全新领域。有些人可能认为我运气好，我想说，卡纳迪楼后，我又被安排到了设计院。

从你们所坐的地方到你们要去的地方是没有直路的，不要尝试画这样的直线，这不仅会出错，还会错失的大的机遇，例如像互联网这样。

职业不是梯子，那种时代一去不返了，职业更像是立体方格铁架，不要只上下移动，不要只往上看，还要往回，往旁边看，看转角周围。你的职业和生活会有始终，会有曲折，不要对未来的道路太过忧虑，因为生活中充满了惊喜和机遇，你需要对各处可能性持开放态度。今天我要讲的最重要的一点就是，对诚实保持开放的态度。相互之间说老实话，对自己诚实，也对我们所生活的世界诚实。看看身边的孩子，你就知道他们有多诚实，我朋友贝琪怀孕后，她五岁的儿子山姆想知道宝宝在她身体里的什么地方。李问，妈妈，宝宝的胳膊在你的胳膊里吗？她说，不是，整个宝宝在我的肚子里。他又问，妈妈，宝宝的腿在你的腿里吗？她回答，不山姆，整个宝宝都在我肚子里。然后，山姆问道，那的屁股里有什么？

作为成年人，我们几乎一直很诚实，这是很难得的好事。我怀孕的时候，我问我丈夫我的屁股有没有变大，起初他说没有，但我不断施压，最后，他说，好吧，有一点。我的小姑子一直说我丈夫，也是你们以后在生活中经常会听到有说到的：“这家伙竟然是哈佛出来的。”

在人一旅途中，如果听到一些真话会对我们很有帮助，我在你们这个年龄的时候，还没有俯到这一点。在我毕业的时候，我对爱情生活的关心大于事业，我认识自己没有什么时间了，必须赶紧找个好男人结婚，以免所有好男人都被别人抢走，或者我太老了。于是，我搬到哥伦比亚特区，在我24岁的时候结婚了。那个男人很不错，但我俩似乎总相处不好，我变得不知道自己是住，也不知道未

来在哪里。一年不到，我的婚姻以失败告终，当时我非常难堪，非常痛苦。很多朋友来安慰我，但毫无帮助，他们说：我就知道你们俩结婚是行不通的，我就知道你们俩不合适。没有人在婚姻之前跟我说这些，事前告诉我这些肯定是会更有用。

我熬过了离婚后的这些痛苦的时光，我多希望他们原来有给过我建议，我多希望我曾经问过他们。而在我的职业生涯中，确实有人这无保留的地说出了实施。本科后，我和第一任老板是兰特普得切特，肯尼迪学院授刘的一位经济学家，他今天也在现场。我第二次考虑法学院时，兰特跟我说，我不认为你应该去法学院，我也不认为你想去法学院。你认为自己应该去，大概只是你父母一直以来的要求。他注意到，我在谈话中从未表现出对法律的任何兴趣。我知道，相互之间坦诚相见有多么难，哪怕最亲密的朋友，哪怕是在他们可能犯严重错误的时候，不过我敢打赌，在座的各位知道自己亲密朋友的强项和弱项，知道他们可能掉落在哪个悬崖。我也敢打赌，大部分时候，你们并没有告诉他们，他们也从没问过。

去问这些问题，真相会越问越明。朋友诚实地回答时，你就知道他们是你真正的朋友了。

养成寻求反馈的习惯非常重要，特别是在离开学校系统，没了考试和分数之后。很多工作中，如果你想知道自己干得怎么样，你就需要去询问，而且不要因为听到不喜欢听的而觉得受到冒犯。毫

无疑问，听人批评绝对不会让人高兴，但我们只能在批评中进步。

几年前，马无扎克伯格决定要学中文。为了练习，他开始尝试在一些工作会议中，同中文母语同事交流。你们估计可以想到，他有有限的中文水平，会让谈话很难正常进行。一天，他问一位女性，有脸谱工作怎么样。她用了一个很长很复杂的句子回答。他说，请简单些。她又说了一次。请再简单些！经过几次之后，她只好说了一句很简单的话~我的经理很糟糕！扎克伯格这次真的听懂了。

通常，真相都成了避免冲突的牺牲品。我们在讲真相时，总喜欢使用很多修饰，很多委婉语，淹没了真正要传达的信息。我希望你们在向他询问真相的时候，能用简单明了的语言相互交流。讲到自己的真相时，也应该使用简单明了的语言。

同他人坦诚相见很困难，坦诚对待自己的想法甚至更难。我有了小孩子后，经常会和自己说，我对工作不感到内疚，哪怕没有人问的时候。有人跟我说，雪

莉，今天过得如何。我会说，很棒，我对工作并不感到内疚。有人说，我需要一件羊毛衫吗？我说，没错，外面很冷，我对荼工不感到内疚。我就像一只学舌的鹦鹉。

有天，我在跑步机上，正在读社会学杂志上的论文。上面写道，相比对他人撒谎，人们更喜欢对自己撒谎，而重复最多的那句话，通常就是谎言。

我脸上汗如雨下，心想，我重复最多的一句话是什么，我意识到了，我对工作感到内疚。我做了大量的研究，我同好友内尔斯克维尔花了一整年的时间，写了一本书，讲我的想法和感受。世界上很多女性都同它产生了共鸣，这让我很欣慰。我的书名叫做《格雷的五十道阴影》，可见，你们很多人也都读过这本书。

对于我们所生活的世界保持诚实，我们还有很多要做。我们并不总能看到真相，就算盾到了，我们经常也没有大声说出的勇气。

我和同学们在读大学时，认为性格平等的斗争已经结束。没错，大部分待业的领袖都是男性，但改变应该只是时间的问题。那边的拉蒙特图书馆，就在我们之前一代人的时间，不允许女性进入，但在我们毕业时，一切都平等了。哈佛和拉德克里夫完全统一了。

我们不需要妇权主义，因为我们已经得到了平等。我们错了，我错了，世界在那时并不平等，现在也不平等。我认为现如今，我们并不只是假装没看到真相，并对不平等视而不见，我们还在遭受低预期的践踏。

在美国的上一个选举周期，女性赢得了20%的参议院席位。所有报纸头条都开始叫嚷，女性接管了参议院。我很想大声回应说，等等，大伙，50%的人只占有了20%的席位，这不是接管，这是羞辱。

今年，就在几个月前，硅谷一位很受人新生的知名商业经理人，邀请我到他的社交媒体俱乐部发表演讲。几个月之前，我去过这家俱乐部。一位朋友过生日邀我去的。建筑很漂亮，我在里面游荡。欣赏她，找卫生间。结果一位员工很肯定的告诉我，女卫生间在那里，让我务必不要上楼去，因为女性不允许进入这座建筑，我直到这时才意识到自己来到了一家全男性俱乐部。

剩下的整个晚上，我一直都纳闷，自己来这里做什么，纳闷其他人都在做什么，纳闷旧金山会不会有朋友邀请我去一个不允许黑人、犹太人、亚洲人、或同

性恋者的俱乐部派对。被邀请到这家俱乐部做商业演讲，就更让人不爽了，因为这根本就不是单纯的社交活动场所。

我首先想到的是，这是真的吗？真的。《向前一步》出版后一年，这个家伙竟然认为邀请我到一家全男怀俱乐部做演讲是一个好主意。他不是一个，很多备受尊敬的商务人士，都和他一起发出这份邀请。

转述格鲁马克思的一句话，别担心，我不打算模仿他的声音。我不会去任何不愿加我为会员的俱乐部做演讲。我拒绝了。我还做一件，也许5年前我不会做的事，我回了一长篇饱含激情的电子邮件，告诉他们应当改变这一做法。他们感谢了我的迅速回函，写到？也许情况最终会有所改变。我们的期望值太代了，最终需要转化为立刻才行。

我们需要看到真相，讲出真相。我们容忍歧视，假装机会是平等的。没错，我们选举了一位非裔美国人总统。但各族主义仍然无处不在，不错，确实有女性掌握着财富500强企业，准确的说是5%。但我们的道路上，充满了母老虎、跋扈老女人这样的恶语。而我们的男性同行却被尊为俯视，被认为成就卓著。

非裔美国女性总需要证明自己没有生气，拉丁裔总被打上暴躁急性子的标签。脸谱有一群亚裔男女，胸口带着牌子说，我有可能不够好。

没错，哈佛有一位女性校长，也许两年后，美国也会迎来首位女总统。但要实现目标，希拉里克林顿需要克服两 大重要障碍，一是未知，通常也未疲理解的性别偏见；二是，更糟的，从耶鲁获得的文凭而不是哈佛。

你们可以挑战老一套的做法，在脸谱我们会贴海报激励自己，完成重于完美，财富偏爱勇敢者，不要害怕，勇往直前。我最近又喜欢上一条，在脸谱没有别人的问题。我希望你们也能这样看问题，问题没有别人 的问题。性别不平等对男性和女性都 没有好处，各族主义对白人和少数族裔都是伤害，缺乏平等机会，让我们所有人无法发挥自己的真正潜能。

在你们毕业的今天，我希望给你们一些压力，让你认识到，真相虽然有时难以接受，但很重要。不要逃避，碰到了就要勇于面对。感谢凯蒂，感谢福斯特校长、哈佛大学理事会成员、监事会成员，还有迎接我回校的所有教职员工、校友及同学们。

站在这里我非常激动，不仅是因为我能在哈佛大学第363届毕业典礼上面对各位优秀的毕业生及校友讲话，更是因为能站在去年奥普拉曾站过的地方。我的天啊。let me begin with the first order of business: let‘s have a big round of applause for the class of 2014.they‘ve earned it.下面让我从最重要的环节开始：让我们把最热烈的掌声送给2014届毕业生们，这是他们赢得的。

as excited as the graduates are, they are probably even more exhausted after the past few weeks.and parents, i‘m not referring to their final exams.i‘m talking about the senior olympics, the last chance dance, and the booze cruise – i mean, the moonlight cruise.毕业生们都一样的兴奋，但同时这几周或许也让他们有些精疲力竭吧。各位家长，我指的可不是期末考试哦，我说的是高年级运动会、最后一次交际舞会和游轮酒宴——我指的是午夜巡游会。

anyway，this year has been exciting on campus：harvard beat yale for the seventh straight time in football.the men‘s basketball team went to the second round of the ncaa tournament for the second straight year.and the men‘s squash team won national championship.不管怎样，今年的校园很令人振奋：哈佛橄榄球队连续第七次击败耶鲁，男子篮球队连续两年打入全国大学体育协会冠军赛的第二轮，还有男子壁球队则获得了全国冠军。

who‘d a thunk it: harvard, an athletic powerhouse!pretty soon they‘re going to be asking whether you have academics to go along with your athletic programs.谁会想到：哈佛，竟然有如此强大的运动天团！不久后，可能就会有人问，你们的学术水平是否能和体育水平相媲美？

my personal connection to harvard began in 1964, when i graduated from johns hopkins university in baltimore and matriculated here at the b-school.我个人与哈佛的关系缘起于1964年，当时我从巴尔地摩的约翰霍普金斯大学毕业并到这里的商学院就读。you‘re probably asking yourself or maybe whispering to the person next to you: how did he ever get into harvard business school, particularly since his stellar academic record, where he always made the top half of the class possible? i have no idea.the only people more surprised than me were my professors.你们或许在想，或者和身旁的人窃窃私语：他是如何进入哈佛商学院的呢？尤其是他的学术成绩总能排在全班前列？我不知道，比我自己更惊讶的可能只有我的教授了。

anyway, here i am again back in cambridge.and i have noticed that a few things have changed since i was a student here.elsie‘s – a sandwich spot i used to love near the square – is now a burrito shop.the wursthaus – which had great beer and sausage – is now an artisanal gastro-pub, whatever that is.and the old holyoke center is now named the smith campus center.总之，今天我又回到了剑桥[注：剑桥为哈佛大学所在地]。我注意到，这里跟我学生时代有了一些变化。广场附近我曾经很喜欢的三文治售卖点爱尔诗，现在成了卷饼店。曾经提供美味啤酒和香肠的乌斯特豪斯，现在成了工艺美食酒吧，不知道这是啥。还有原来的霍利约克中心

现在改名为史密斯校园中心。don‘t you just hate it when alumni put their names all over everything? i was thinking about that this morning as i walked into the bloomberg center on the harvard business school campus across the river.but the good news is, harvard remains what it was when i first arrived on campus 50 years ago: america‘s most prestigious university.and, like other great universities, it lies at the heart of the american experiment in democracy.不过也有好消息，就是哈佛仍然秉承着50年前我刚入校时的优良传统，依旧是美国最负盛名的大学。和其他顶尖的大学一样，她处在美国民主实验的核心位置。

这些顶尖大学的目的不仅是增长知识，还包括推进我们民族的理想。顶尖大学是让各种背景、各种信仰、探寻各种问题的人，能到此自由开放地学习和探讨想法的地方。

today, i‘d like to talk with you about how important it is for that freedom to exist for everyone, no matter how strongly we may disagree with another‘s viewpoint.今天我想跟大家聊聊，这种自由的存在对于每个人来说是多么的重要，无论我们多么不认同别人的观点。

tolerance for other people‘s ideas, and the freedom to express your own, are inseparable values at great universities.joined together, they form a sacred trust that holds the basis of our democratic society.包容他人观点，以及表达自身言论的自由，是顶尖大学不可分割的价值。两者结合在一起，构成了支撑民主社会根基的一种神圣的信赖。

but let me tell you that trust is perpetually vulnerable to the tyrannical tendencies of monarchs, mobs, and majorities.and lately, we have seen those tendencies manifest themselves too often, both on college campuses and in our society.不过我要告诉大家，这种信赖在君主、暴民、多数派的专制倾向下是很脆弱的。最近，大家频繁地看到这些倾向真实发生的事例，不管是在大学校园或社会。

that‘s the bad news – and unfortunately, i think both harvard, and my own city of new york, have been witnesses to this trend.这是个坏消息，而且很不幸的是，我认为哈佛以及我自己所在的城市纽约，也都目睹过这种倾向。

first, for new york city.several years ago, as you may remember, some people tried to stop the development of a mosque a few blocks from the world trade center site.首先，来谈谈纽约市。你们可能记得，几年前有些人试图阻止在世贸中心旧址几个街区远的地方建一座清真寺的计划。

it was an emotional issue, and polls showed that two-thirds of americans were against a mosque being built there.even the anti-defamation league – widely regarded as the country‘s most ardent defender of religious freedom – declared its opposition to the project.这是个情感的议题，民意调查显示超过2/3的美国人反对在该地修建清真寺。即便是反诽谤联盟——这个被公认为全国宗教自由最狂热的捍卫者，也公然反对该项计划。the opponents held rallies and demonstrations.they denounced the developers，and they demanded that city government stop its construction.that was their right and we protected their right to protest.but they could not have been more wrong.and we refused to cave in to their demands.反对者发动集会和示威活动。他们谴责开发商，要求市政府终止这项工程。那是他们的权利，我们保障他们抗议的权利。但他们的观点绝对是错误的，我们拒绝向他们的要求妥协。the idea that government would single out a particular religion, and block its believers – and only its believers – from building a house of worship in a particular area is diametrically opposed to the moral principles that gave rise to our great nation and the constitutional protections that have sustained it.要求政府单独选出一个特定的宗教、阻止并且只阻止其信徒在特定区域建立其宗教活动场所的想法，这完全悖离伟大民族的道德原则，是宪法保护所不允许的。

our union of 50 states rests on the union of two values: freedom and tolerance.and it is that union of values that the terrorists who attacked us on september 11th, 2001 and on april 15th, 2013 found most threatening.我们这50州联邦的建立取决两大价值的结合：自由和包容。正是这两大价值的结合，让2001年9月11日和2013年4月15日袭击我们的恐怖分子备感威胁。to them, we were a god-less country.在他们看来，我们是一个无神的国度。

but in fact, there is no country that protects the core of every faith and philosophy known to human kind – free will – more than the united states of america.that protection, however, rests upon our constant vigilance.但事实上，没有任何一个国家，比美国更能保护人类各种信仰和哲学认识的核心——自由意志。不过，这种保护需要依赖于我们时刻的警觉。

we like to think that the principle of separation of church and state is settled.it is not.and it never will be.it is up to us to guard it fiercely and to ensure that equality under the law means equality under the law for everyone.我们会这么认为：政教分离的原则已经确立。实际上并没有，而且永远不会。我们需要坚决地拥护它，以确保法律条文下规定的人人平等，对每个人都是平等的。

if you want the freedom to worship as you wish, to speak as you wish, and to marry whom you wish, you must tolerate my freedom to do so or not do so as well.如果你希望你的信仰、言论和选择配偶的自由，如你所愿，你就必须包容我这样做或不这样做的自由。

第五篇：乔布斯_哈佛演讲

苹果总裁乔布斯在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的演讲

2005年6月12日

I am honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.Truth be told, I never graduated from college.And this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.That's it.No big deal.Just three stories.今天，有荣幸来到各位从世界上最好的学校之一毕业的毕业典礼上。我从来没从大学毕业。说实话，这是我离大学毕业最近的一刻。今天，我只说三个故事，不谈大道理，三个故事就好。

The first story is about connecting the dots.第一个故事，是关于人生中的点点滴滴怎么串连在一起。

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit.So why did I drop out? 我在里德学院待了六个月就办休学了。到我退学前，一共休学了十八个月。那么，我为什么休学？

It started before I was born.My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption.She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy;do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school.She refused to sign the final adoption papers.She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.This was the start in my life.这得从我出生前讲起。我的亲生母亲当时是个研究生，年轻未婚妈妈，她决定让别人收养我。她强烈觉得应该让有大学毕业的人收养我，所以我出生时，她就准备让我被一对律师夫妇收养。但是这对夫妻到了最后一刻反悔了，他们想收养女孩。所以在等待收养名单上的一对夫妻，我的养父母，在一天半夜里接到一通电话，问他们“有一名意外出生的男孩，你们要认养他吗？”而他们的回答是“当然要”。后来，我的生母发现，我现在的妈妈从来没有大学毕业，我现在的爸爸则连高中毕业也没有。她拒绝在认养文件上做最后签字。直到几个月后，我的养父母同意将来一定会让我上大学，她才软化态度。

And 17 years later I did go to college.But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition.After six months, I couldn't see the value in it.I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK.It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.十七年后，我上大学了。但是当时我无知选了一所学费几乎跟史丹佛一样贵的大学，我那工人阶级的父母所有积蓄都花在我的学费上。六个月后，我看不出念这个书的价值何在。那时候，我不知道这辈子要干什么，也不知道念大学能对我有什么帮助，而且我为了念这个书，花光了我父母这辈子的所有积蓄，所以我决定休学，相信船到桥头自然直。当时这个决定看来相当可怕，可是现在看来，那是我这辈子做过最好的决定之一。当我休学之后，我再也不用上我没兴趣的必修课，把时间拿去听那些我有兴趣的课。

It wasn't all romantic.I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5￠ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.I loved it.And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.Let me give you one example: 这一点也不浪漫。我没有宿舍，所以我睡在友人家里的地板上，靠着回收可乐空罐的五先令退费买吃的，每个星期天晚上得走七哩的路绕过大半个镇去印度教的 Hare Krishna神庙吃顿好料。我喜欢Hare Krishna神庙的好料。追寻我的好奇与直觉，我所驻足的大部分事物，后来看来都成了无价之宝。举例来说：

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed.Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.当时里德学院有着大概是全国最好的书法指导。在整个校园内的每一张海报上，每个抽屉的标签上，都是美丽的手写字。因为我休学了，可以不照正常选课程序来，所以我跑去学书法。我学了serif与san serif字体，学到在不同字母组合间变更字间距，学到活版印刷伟大的地方。书法的美好、历史感与艺术感是科学所无法捕捉的，我觉得那很迷人。

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life.But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.And we designed it all into the Mac.It was the first computer with beautiful typography.If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college.But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.我没预期过学的这些东西能在我生活中起些什么实际作用，不过十年后，当我在设计第一台麦金塔时，我想起了当时所学的东西，所以把这些东西都设计进了麦金塔里，这是第一台能印刷出漂亮东西的电脑。如果我没沉溺于那样一门课里，麦金塔可能就不会有多重字体跟变间距字体了。又因为Windows抄袭了麦金塔的使用方式，如果当年我没这样做，大概世界上所有的个人电脑都不会有这些东西，印不出现在我们看到的漂亮的字来了。当然，当我还在大学里时，不可能把这些点点滴滴预先串在一起，但是这在十年后回顾，就显得非常清楚。

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward;you can only connect them looking backwards.So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.Because believing in the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when they leave you off the well-worn path.And it has made all the difference in my life.我再说一次，你不能预先把点点滴滴串在一起；唯有未来回顾时，你才会明白那些点点滴滴是如何串在一起的。所以你得相信，你现在所体会的东西，将来多少会连接在一块。你得信任某个东西，直觉也好，命运也好，生命也好，或者业力。这种作法从来没让我失望，也让我的人生整个不同起来。

My second story is about love and loss.我的第二个故事，有关爱与失去。

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life.Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20.We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30.And then I got fired.How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well.But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out.When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him.So at 30 I was out.And very publicly out.What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.我好运－年轻时就发现自己爱做什么事。我二十岁时，跟Steve Wozniak在我爸妈的车库里开始了苹果电脑的事业。我们拼命工作，苹果电脑在十年间从一间车库里的两个小夥子扩展成了一家员工超过四千人、市价二十亿美金的公司，在那之前一年推出了我们最棒的作品－麦金塔，而我才刚迈入人生的第三十个年头，然后被炒鱿鱼。要怎么让自己创办的公司炒自己鱿鱼？好吧，当苹果电脑成长后，我请了一个我以为他在经营公司上很有才干的家伙来，他在头几年也确实干得不错。可是我们对未来的愿景不同，最后只好分道扬镳，董事会站在他那边，炒了我鱿鱼，公开把我请了出去。曾经是我整个成年生活重心的东西不见了，令我不知所措。

I really didn't know what to do for a few months.I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs downthese things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.You are already naked.There is no reason not to follow your heart.提醒自己快死了，是我在人生中下重大决定时，所用过最重要的工具。因为几乎每件事－所有外界期望、所有名誉、所有对困窘或失败的恐惧－在面对死亡时，都消失了，只有最重要的东西才会留下。提醒自己快死了，是我所知避免掉入自己有东西要失去了的陷阱里最好的方法。人生不带来，死不带去，没什么道理不顺心而为。

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer.I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas.I didn't even know what a pancreas was.The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die.It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months.It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family.It means to say your goodbyes.一年前，我被诊断出癌症。我在早上七点半作断层扫描，在胰脏清楚出现一个肿瘤，我连胰脏是什么都不知道。医生告诉我，那几乎可以确定是一种不治之症，我大概活不到三到六个月了。医生建议我回家，好好跟亲人们聚一聚，这是医生对临终病人的标准建议。那代表你得试着在几个月内把你将来十年想跟小孩讲的话讲完。那代表你得把每件事情搞定，家人才会尽量轻松。那代表你得跟人说再见了。

I lived with that diagnosis all day.Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor.I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery.I had the surgery and thankfully I'm fine now.我整天想着那个诊断结果，那天晚上做了一次切片，从喉咙伸入一个内视镜，从胃进肠子，插了根针进胰脏，取了一些肿瘤细胞出来。我打了镇静剂，不醒人事，但是我老婆在场。她后来跟我说，当医生们用显微镜看过那些细胞后，他们都哭了，因为那是非常少见的一种胰脏癌，可以用手术治好。所以我接受了手术，康复了。

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades.Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: 这是我最接近死亡的时候，我希望那会继续是未来几十年内最接近的一次。经历此事后，我可以比之前死亡只是抽象概念时要更肯定告诉你们下面这些：

No one wants to die.Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there.And yet death is the destination we all share.No one has ever escaped it.And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.It is Life's change agent.It clears out the old to make way for the new.Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.没有人想死。即使那些想上天堂的人，也想活着上天堂。但是死亡是我们共有的目的地，没有人逃得过。这是注定的，因为死亡简直就是生命中最棒的发明，是生命变化的媒介，送走老人们，给新生代留下空间。现在你们是新生代，但是不久的将来，你们也会逐渐变老，被送出人生的舞台。抱歉讲得这么戏剧化，但是这是真的。

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking.Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.They somehow already know what you truly want to become.Everything else is secondary.你们的时间有限，所以不要浪费时间活在别人的生活里。不要被信条所惑－盲从信条就是活在别人思考结果里。不要让别人的意见淹没了你内在的心声。最重要的，拥有跟随内心与直觉的勇气，你的内心与直觉多少已经知道你真正想要成为什么样的人。任何其他事物都是次要的。

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation.It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch.This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras.It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.在我年轻时，有本神奇的杂志叫做 Whole Earth Catalog，当年我们很迷这本杂志。那是一位住在离这不远的Menlo Park的Stewart Brand发行的，他把杂志办得很有诗意。那是1960年代末期，个人电脑跟桌上出版还没发明，所有内容都是打字机、剪刀跟拍立得相机做出来的。杂志内容有点像印在纸上的Google，在Google出现之前35年就有了：理想化，充满新奇工具与神奇的注记。

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue.It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age.On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous.Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry.Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off.Stay Hungry.Stay Foolish.And I have always wished that for myself.And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.Stewart跟他的出版团队出了好几期Whole Earth Catalog，然后出了停刊号。当时是1970年代中期，我正是你们现在这个年龄的时候。在停刊号的封底，有张早晨乡间小路的照片，那种你去爬山时会经过的乡间小路。在照片下有行小字：求知若饥，虚心若愚。那是他们亲笔写下的告别讯息，我总是以此自许。当你们毕业，展开新生活，我也以此期许你们。

Stay Hungry.Stay Foolish.求知若饥，虚心若愚。

Thank you all very much.非常感谢大家。