比尔盖茨在斯坦福大学的演讲

第一篇：比尔盖茨在斯坦福大学的演讲

比尔盖茨在斯坦福大学的演讲

主讲人介绍：比尔·盖茨是微软公司主席和首席软件架构师。微软公司在个人计算和商业计算软件、服务和互联网技术方面都是全球范围内的领导者。在2002年6月截止的上个财年，微软公司的收入达283.7亿美元，在78个国家和地区开展业务，全球的员工总数超过50,000人。

内容：比尔·盖茨于2008年02月20日在斯坦福大学发表了一次演讲，主题是“软件、创新、创业和回馈”。

比尔·盖茨(Bill Gates)2008年02月19日 在斯坦福大学发表了一次演讲，主题是“软件、创新、创业和回馈”。

盖茨首先谈了软件在下一个数字十年可以做哪些事情。同第一个数字十年相比，第二个数字十年将带来更大的变化，这主要得益于此前打下的坚实基础。到目前为止，全球已经拥有超过10亿台PC，手机用户达到几十亿人，宽带互联网用户也达到几亿人。中国的宽带用户人数已经超越美国，而且美国无力再反超。美国只有PC和软件市场还大于中国。

互联网让世界变得更小。PC最初主要用于编辑文档，现在用于收发电子邮件和内容，而未来一切都将数字化。PC的普及将给每一个行业带来影响，甚至包括教育行业。

考虑到软件所能发挥的巨大作用，我们对未来应当有更大的“野心”。随着互联网的普及，全世界的人越来越紧密的连接在一起，软件为他们提供了更好的工具，创新将加速这一过程。

存储容量将呈几何级数增长，晶体管也是如此。但是，处理器主频将会遭遇瓶颈，过去几年不断提升的局面不复存在。

消费者最需要的数字产品包括：可以占据家中每面墙的低价显示屏；可以识别人的动作和身份的摄像头，而且价钱不贵；键盘和鼠标将被其它交互技术所取代，例如Wii控制器和iPod触摸屏等等；TellMe软件被移植到手机平台，可以更加准确地识别语音；延长笔记本的待机时间；计算机不仅位于桌面，还可以位于桌内，桌面就是一个显示屏。

电视将变得更加个性化，更加具有互动性。孩子可以观看体育比赛，而其它人可以观看HD DVD高清晰电影。广告将更具针对性，而观看则更具互动性。我们已经习惯于有限的电视体验，被迫观看哪些乏味的电视节目，这种情况未来将会发生变化。

对于一家公司来说，研发是最好的投资之一。微软在研发方面的投入高达60亿美元以上，而且分布在全球各地。

第二篇：比尔盖茨夫妇在斯坦福大学的演讲-2014

Text of the 2014 Commencement Address by Bill and Melinda Gates

Following is the text of the address by Bill and Melinda Gates, philanthropists and cochairs of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as prepared for delivery at Stanford University's 123rd Commencement on June 15, 2014.Bill Gates: Congratulations, Class of 2014!Melinda and I are excited to be here.It would be a thrill for anyone to be invited to speak at a Stanford Commencement – but it's especially gratifying for us.Stanford is rapidly becoming the favorite university for members of our family.And it's long been a favorite university for Microsoft and our foundation.Our formula has been to get the smartest, most creative people working on the most important problems.It turns out that a disproportionate number of those people are at Stanford.Right now, we have more than 30 foundation research projects underway with Stanford.When we want to learn more about the immune system to help cure the worst diseases, we work with Stanford.When we want to understand the changing landscape of higher education in the United States so that more low-income students get college degrees, we work with Stanford.This is where genius lives.There is a flexibility of mind here – an openness to change, an eagerness for what's new.This is where people come to discover the future and have fun doing it.Melinda Gates: Some people call you nerds – and you claim the label with pride.Bill: Well, so do we.There are so many remarkable things going on here at this campus.But if Melinda and I had to put into one word what we love most about Stanford, it's the optimism.There's an infectious feeling here that innovation can solve almost every problem.That's the belief that drove me, in 1975, to leave a college in the suburbs of Boston and go on an endless leave of absence.I believed that the magic of computers and software would empower people everywhere and make the world much, much better.It's been almost 40 years since then, and 20 years since Melinda and I were married.We are both more optimistic now than ever.But on our journey together, our optimism evolved.We'd like to tell you what we learned – and talk to you today about how your optimism and ours can do more – for more people.When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft, we wanted to bring the power of computers and software to the people – and that was the kind of rhetoric we used.One of the pioneering books in the field had a raised fist on the cover, and it was called Computer Lib.At that time, only big businesses could buy computers.We wanted to offer the same power to regular people – and democratize computing.By the 1990s, we saw how profoundly personal computers could empower people.But that success created a new dilemma: If rich kids got computers and poor kids didn't, then technology would make inequality worse.That ran counter to our core belief: Technology should benefit everybody.So we worked to close the digital divide.I made it a priority at Microsoft, and Melinda and I made it an early priority at our foundation – donating personal computers to public libraries to make sure everyone had access.The digital divide was a focus of mine in 1997 when I took my first trip to South Africa.I went there on business, so I spent most of my time in meetings in downtown Johannesburg.I stayed in the home of one of the richest families in South Africa.It had only been three years since the election of Nelson Mandela marked the end of apartheid.When I sat down for dinner with my hosts, they used a bell to call the butler.After dinner, the men and women separated, and the men smoked cigars.I thought, “Good thing I read Jane Austen, or I wouldn't have known what was going on.” The next day I went to Soweto – the poor township southwest of Johannesburg that had been a center of the anti-apartheid movement.It was a short distance from the city into the township, but the entry was sudden, jarring, and harsh.I passed into a world completely unlike the one I came from.My visit to Soweto became an early lesson in how naïve I was.Microsoft was donating computers and software to a community center there – the kind of thing we did in the United States.But it became clear to me very quickly that this was not the United States.I had seen statistics on poverty, but I had never really seen poverty.The people there lived in corrugated tin shacks with no electricity, no water, no toilets.Most people didn't wear shoes;they walked barefoot along the streets.Except there were no streets – just ruts in the mud.The community center had no consistent source of power, so they had rigged up an extension cord that ran about 200 feet from the center to a diesel generator outside.Looking at the setup, I knew the minute the reporters and I left, the generator would get moved to a more urgent task, and the people who used the community center would go back to worrying about challenges that couldn't be solved by a PC.When I gave my prepared remarks to the press, I said: “Soweto is a milestone.There are major decisions ahead about whether technology will leave the developing world behind.This is to close the gap.” As I was reading those words, I knew they were irrelevant.What I didn't say was: “By the way, we're not focused on the fact that half a million people on this continent are dying every year from malaria.But we're sure as hell going to bring you computers.” Before I went to Soweto, I thought I understood the world's problems, but I was blind to the most important ones.I was so taken aback by what I saw that I had to ask myself, “Do I still believe that innovation can solve the world's toughest problems?” I promised myself that before I came back to Africa, I would find out more about what keeps people poor.Over the years, Melinda and I did learn more about the most pressing needs of the poor.On a later trip to South Africa, I paid a visit to a hospital for patients with MDR-TB, or multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, a disease with a cure rate of under 50 percent.I remember that hospital as a place of despair.It was a giant open ward with a sea of patients shuffling around in pajamas, wearing masks.There was one floor just for children, including some babies lying in bed.They had a little school for the kids who were well enough to learn, but many of the children couldn't make it, and the hospital didn't seem to know whether it was worth it to keep the school open.I talked to a patient there in her early thirties.She had been a worker at a TB hospital when she came down with a cough.She went to a doctor, and he told her she had drug-resistant TB.She was later diagnosed with AIDS.She wasn't going to live much longer, but there were plenty of MDR patients waiting to take her bed when she vacated it.This was hell with a waiting list.But seeing hell didn't reduce my optimism;it channelled it.I got in the car and told the doctor who was working with us: “Yeah, I know.MDR-TB is hard to cure.But we should be able to do something for these people.” This year, we're entering phase three with a new TB drug regime.For patients who respond, instead of a 50 percent cure rate after 18 months for $2,000, we could get an 80-90 percent cure rate after six months for under $100.That's better by a factor of a hundred.Optimism is often dismissed as false hope.But there is also false hopelessness.That's the attitude that says we can't defeat poverty and disease.We absolutely can.Melinda: Bill called me after he visited the TB hospital.Ordinarily, if we're calling from a trip, we just go through the agenda of the day: “Here's what I did;here's where I went;here's who I met.” But this call was different.He said: “Melinda, I've gone somewhere I've never been before” and then he choked up and couldn't talk.Finally he just said: “I'll tell you when I get home.” I knew what he was going through.When you see people with so little hope, it breaks your heart.But if you want to do the most, you have to see the worst.That's what Bill was doing that day.I've had days like that, too.Ten years ago, I travelled to India with friends.On the last day there, I spent some time meeting with prostitutes.I expected to talk to them about the risk of AIDS, but they wanted to talk about stigma.Most of these women had been abandoned by their husbands, and that's why they'd gone into prostitution.They were trying to make enough money to feed their kids.They were so low in the eyes of society that they could be raped and robbed and beaten by anybody – even by police – and nobody cared.Talking to them about their lives was so moving to me.But what I remember most is how much they wanted to touch me and be touched.It was as if physical contact somehow proved their worth.As I was leaving, we took a photo of all of us with our arms linked together.Later that day, I spent some time in a home for the dying.I walked into a large hall and saw rows and rows of cots.Every cot was attended except for one far off in the corner that no one was going near, so I walked over there.The patient was a woman who seemed to be in her thirties.I remember her eyes.She had these huge, brown, sorrowful eyes.She was emaciated, on the verge of death.Her intestines weren't holding anything – so they had put her on a cot with a hole cut out in the bottom, and everything just poured through into a pan below.I could tell she had AIDS, both from the way she looked, and the fact that she was off in the corner alone.The stigma of AIDS is vicious – especially for women – and the punishment is abandonment.When I arrived at her cot, I suddenly felt totally helpless.I had absolutely nothing I could offer her.I knew I couldn't save her, but I didn't want her to be alone.So I knelt down next to her and reached out to touch her – and as soon as she felt my hand, she grabbed it and wouldn't let go.We sat there holding hands, and even though I knew she couldn't understand me, I just started saying: “It's okay.It's okay.It's not your fault.It's not your fault.” We had been there together for a while when she pointed upward with her finger.It took me some time to figure out that she wanted to go up to the roof and sit outside while it was still light out.I asked one of the workers if that would be okay, but she was overwhelmed by all the patients she had to care for.She said: “She's in the last stages of dying, and I have to pass out medicine.” Then I asked another, and got the same answer.It was getting late and the sun was going down, and I had to leave, and no one seemed willing to take her upstairs.So finally I just scooped her up – she was just skin over a skeleton, just a sack of bones – and I carried her up the stairs.On the roof, there were a few of those plastic chairs that will blow over in a strong breeze, and I set her down on one of those, and I helped prop her feet up on another, and I placed a blanket over her legs.And she sat there with her face to the west, watching the sunset.I made sure the workers knew that she was up there so they would come get her after the sun went down.Then I had to leave her.But she never left me.I felt completely and totally inadequate in the face of this woman's death.But sometimes it's the people you can't help who inspire you the most.I knew that the sex workers I linked arms with in the morning could become the woman I carried upstairs in the evening – unless they found a way to defy the stigma that hung over their lives.Over the past 10 years, our foundation has helped sex workers build support groups so they could empower each other to speak out for safe sex and demand that their clients use condoms.Their brave efforts helped keep HIV prevalence low among sex workers, and a lot of studies show that is a big reason why the AIDS epidemic in India hasn't exploded.When these sex workers gathered together to help stop AIDS transmission, something unexpected and wonderful happened.The community they formed became a platform for everything.They were able to set up speed-dial networks to respond to violent attacks.Police and others who raped and robbed them couldn't get away with it anymore.The women set up systems to encourage savings.They used financial services that helped some of them start businesses and get out of sex work.This was all done by people society considered the lowliest of the low.Optimism for me isn't a passive expectation that things will get better;it's a conviction that we can make things better – that whatever suffering we see, no matter how bad it is, we can help people if we don't lose hope and we don't look away.Bill: Melinda and I have described some devastating scenes.But we want to make the strongest case we can for the power of optimism.Even in dire situations, optimism can fuel innovation and lead to new tools to eliminate suffering.But if you never really see the people who are suffering, your optimism can't help them.You will never change their world.And that brings me to what I see as a paradox.The world of science and technology is driving phenomenal innovations – and Stanford stands at the center of that, creating new companies, prize-winning professors, ingenious software, miracle drugs, and amazing graduates.We're on the verge of mind-blowing breakthroughs in what human beings can do for each other.And people here are really excited about the future.At the same time, if you ask people across the United States, “Is the future going to be better than the past?” most people will say: “No.My kids will be worse off than I am.” They think innovation won't make the world better for them or for their children.So who's right? The people who say innovation will create new possibilities and make the world better? …or… The people who see a trend toward inequality and a decline in opportunity and don't think innovation will change that? The pessimists are wrong in my view, but they're not crazy.If technology is purely market-driven and we don't focus innovation on the big inequities, then we could have amazing inventions that leave the world even more divided.We won't improve public schools.We won't cure malaria.We won't end poverty.We won't develop the innovations poor farmers need to grow food in a changing climate.If our optimism doesn't address the problems that affect so many of our fellow human beings, then our optimism needs more empathy.If empathy channelled our optimism, we would see the poverty and the disease and the poor schools, we would answer with our innovations, and we would surprise the pessimists.Over the next generation, you Stanford graduates will lead a new wave of innovation and apply it to your world.Which problems will you decide to solve? If your world is wide, you can create the future we all want.If your world is narrow, you may create the future the pessimists fear.I started learning in Soweto that if we're going to make our optimism matter to everyone and empower people everywhere, we have to see the lives of those most in need.If we have optimism, but we don't have empathy – then it doesn't matter how much we master the secrets of science, we're not really solving problems;we're just working on puzzles.I think most of you have a broader worldview than I had at your age.You can do better at this than I did.If you put your hearts and minds to it, you can surprise the pessimists.We can't wait to see it.Melinda: Let your heart break.It will change what you do with your optimism.On a trip to South Asia, I met a desperately poor mother who brought me her two small children and implored me: “Please take them home with you.” When I begged her forgiveness and said I could not, she said: “Then please take one.” On another trip, to South Los Angeles, I was talking to a group of high school students from a tough neighbourhood when one young woman said to me: “Do you ever feel like we are just somebody else's kids whose parents shirked their responsibilities, that we're all just leftovers?” These women made my heart break – and still do.And the empathy intensifies if I admit to myself: “That could be me.” When I talk with the mothers I meet during my travels, I see that there is no difference at all in what we want for our children.The only difference is our ability to give it to them.What accounts for that difference? Bill and I talk about this with our kids at the dinner table.Bill worked incredibly hard and took risks and made sacrifices for success.But there is another essential ingredient of success, and that ingredient is luck – absolute and total luck.When were you born? Who were your parents? Where did you grow up? None of us earned these things.They were given to us.When we strip away our luck and privilege and consider where we'd be without them, it becomes easier to see someone who's poor and sick and say “that could be me.” This is empathy;it tears down barriers and opens up new frontiers for optimism.So here is our appeal to you: As you leave Stanford, take your genius and your optimism and your empathy and go change the world in ways that will make millions of others optimistic as well.You don't have to rush.You have careers to launch, debts to pay, spouses to meet and marry.That's enough for now.But in the course of your lives, without any plan on your part, you'll come to see suffering that will break your heart.When it happens, and it will, don't turn away from it;turn toward it.That is the moment when change is born.Congratulations and good luck.

第三篇：比尔盖茨夫妇斯坦福大学2014年毕业典礼演讲

Stanford Stanford University 斯坦福大学

Bill and Melinda Gates 比尔盖茨夫妇 Bill：Congratulations, class of 2014!祝贺2014届毕业生！

Melinda and I are excited to be here.我和梅琳达很高兴能来到这里。

It would be a thrill for anyone to be invited to speak at a Stanford commencement, but it’s especially gratifying for us.能受邀到斯坦福做毕业演讲对于任何人来说都是一件令人激动的事情, 我们尤是如此。Stanford is rapidly becoming the favorite university for members of our family, and it’s long been a favorite university for Microsoft and our foundation.斯坦福正迅速成为我们家人最喜欢的一所大学，它也一直是微软以及我们基金会最偏爱的一所大学。

Our formula has been to get the smartest, most creative people working on the most important problems.我们喜欢招募最聪明最有创造性的人去解决最重要的问题。

It turns out that a disproportionate number of thost people are at Stanford.事实证明，我们这里很大一部分人都来自于斯坦福。

Right now, we have more than 30 foundation research projects underway here.现在这里有30多个基金会研究项目正在进行。

When we want to learn more about the immune system to help cure the worst diseases we work with Stanford.当我们想更深入理解免疫系统帮助治疗最严重的疾病时，我们找到斯坦福一同合作。

When we want to understand the changing landscape of higher education in the United States, so that more low-income students get college degrees, we work with Stanford.当我们想了解美国高等教育现状的改变趋势,帮助更多低收入家庭的学生获得大学学位时，我们找到斯坦福一同合作。This is where genius lives.斯坦福是一个盛产天才的地方。

There’s a flexibility of mind here, and openness to change, an eagerness for what’s new.这里的思想充满了灵活性，开放性和创新性。

This is where people come to discover the future, and have fun doing it.斯坦福是促进人类探索未来并乐在其中的地方。

Melinda: Now, some people call you all nerds and we hear that you claim that label with pride.有些人把你们称作“书呆子”，听说你们很喜欢这个称谓。

Bill: Well, so do we.我们也喜欢。

夫妇同时戴眼镜

My normal glasses really aren’t all that different.Laughing。台下大笑。我平时用的眼睛其实也没有多大不同。

There are so many remarkable things going on here at this campus, but if Melinda and I had go put into one word what we love most about Stanford, it’s the optimism.这所学校里发生了很多了不起的事情。如果要我和梅琳达用一个词来总结对斯坦福的热爱，我们会说是“乐观”。

There’s an infectious feeling here that innovation can solve almost every problem.这里有着浓郁的氛围，让人觉得创新能够解决所有问题。

That’s the belief that drove me in 1975 to leave a college in the suburbs of Boston and go on endless leave of absence.也正是这种信念让我在1975年离开波士顿郊外的那所大学，从此一去不复返。

I believed that magic of computers and software would empower people everywhere and make the world much, much better.我相信，神奇的计算机和软件能够让全世界所有人获得力量，让世界变得比现在好很多很多。It’s been 40 years since then, and 20 years since Melinda and I were married.从那时到现在已经过40年，我和梅琳达结婚也已经20年了。We are both more optimistic now and ever.我们仍然坚持着这份乐观，甚至更甚于当年。But on our journey, our optimism evolved.随着人生旅途的展开，这份乐观也随之深化。

We would like to tell you what we learned and talk to you today about how your optimism and ours can do more for more people..今天，我们愿与大家分享自己的经历，告诉大家你们的乐观也可以和我们一样为更多的人做到更多。

When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft, we wanted to bring the power of the computers and software to the people, and that was the kind of rhetoric we used.我和保罗`艾伦开创微软时，希望让计算机和软件的力量造福全人类，这也正是我们所想传达的理念。

One of the pioneering book in the field had raised fist on the cover, and it was called “Computer Lib.”

领域内的一本先驱性的书籍封面上举起拳头，将这称作是“计算机解放运动”。At that time, only big businesses could buy computers.当时，只有大公司才买得起计算机。

We wanted to offer the same power to regular people, and democratize computing.我们希望让普通人也能使用这份力量，让计算机能够民众化 普及化。

By the 1990s, we saw how profoundly personal computers could empower people, but that success created a new dilemma.到1990年代，我们都见证了个人计算机为人类做出的巨大贡献，但这份成功同时又引来了新的困境。

If rich kids got computers and poor kids didn’t, then technology would make inequality worse.如果富有孩子有电脑用，而穷孩子没有，那么技术的天平将变得更加不平等。That ran counter to our core belief.这将同我们的核心新年背道而驰。Technology should benefit everyone.技术应当让每个人收益。

So we worked to close the digital divide.于是我们开始行动，试图缩小这一数字鸿沟。

I made a priority at Microsoft, and Melinda and I made it an early priority at our Foundation.我原来在微软以及我和梅琳达在盖茨基金会早期都确立了。

Donating personal computers to public libraries to make sure that everyone had access.向公共图书馆捐赠个人计算机这一优先事务以帮助每个人获得计算机使用权。The digital divide was a focus of mine in 1997, when I took my first trip to South Africa.1997年这意数字鸿沟是我的主要关注焦点，当时我是第一次去南非。I went there on business.我是出公差。

So I spent most of my time in meetings in downtown Johannesburg.大多数时间都在于汉内斯堡中心城区开会。

I stayed in the home of one of the richest families of South Africa.住在南非国内非常有线的一位富豪家里。

It had only been three years since the election of Nelson Mandela marked the end of apartheid.当时离纳尔逊·曼德拉当选只有三年时间，种族隔离刚刚终结。

When I sat down for dinner with my hosts, they used a bell to call the butler.我同屋子的主任坐在一起用餐，主人眼红铃来呼唤仆人。

After dinner, the women and men separated and the men smoked cigars.餐后女人们会和男人们分开，男人们会抽雪茄。

I thought, good thing I read Jane Austen, or I wouldn’t have known what was going on.我心想，幸好我读过简·奥斯汀的作品，否则我估计根本无法理解这里发生了什么。

But the next day I went to Soweto, the poor town just southwest of Johannesburg, that had been the center of the antiapartheid movement.第二天我去了索韦托，于汉内斯堡西南面一个很贫穷的城镇，曾经反种族运动的中心。It was a short distance from the city into the township, but the entry was sudden, jarring and harsh.这座城镇离约翰内斯堡主城区并不远，但进入索韦托后，我立刻感受到了强烈的视觉冲击。I passed into a world completely unlike the one I came from.它和我之前看到的完全是两个世界。

My visit to Soweto became an early lesson in how naïve I was.到索韦托后我才刚开始意识到原来自己有多么天真。

Microsoft was donating computers and software to a community center there.微软当时将计算机和软件捐给当地的社区中心。The kind of thing we did in the United States.这同我们在美国所做的一样。

But it became clear to me, very quickly, that this was not the United States.但我很快意识到南非并不是美国。

I had seen statistics on poverty, but I had never really seen poverty.我之前看过关于贫困的统计数字，但却从来没真正看过什么叫贫穷。

The people there lived in corrugated tin shacks, with on electricity, no water, no toilets.当地人住在简陋的金属棚里，没有电没有水 没有厕所。Most people didn’t wear shoes.大多数人连鞋都没有穿的。

They walked barefoot along the streets, except there were no streets, just ruts in the mud.他们赤脚在街上走，其实那里根本就没有街，不过只有一些泥巴路。The community center had no consistent source of power.社区中心连持续的电力供应都没有。

So they rigged up an extension cord that ran 200 feet from the center to the diesel generator

outside.人们只能临时拉了一根200英尺长的延长线，让社区中心能够街上外面的柴油机发电机。Looking at this setup, I knew the minute the reporters left, the generator would get to a more urgent task.看到这种情形，我知道一旦记者离开发电机就会被用到更紧急的任务。

And the people at the community center would go back to worry about challenges that couldn’t be solved by a personal computer.而社区中心的人们也需要重新去面对那些不是个人计算机就能解决的问题。When I gave my prepared remarks to the press, I said Soweto is a milestone.我按照事先准备的讲稿，对媒体说索韦托是一个里程碑。

There’s major decisions ahead about whether technology will leave the developing world behind.在未来，为了不让发展中国家在技术上落后显然还有很多重大决定要做。This is to close the gap.我们将像这样，努力缩小技术上的鸿沟。

But as I read those words, I knew they weren’t super relevant.但在我阅读这份讲稿时，我深知情况远远没有这么简单。

What I didn’t say was, by the way, we’re not focused on the fact that half a million people on this continent are dying every year from malaria.讲稿上有一段我没有读，也就是我们还没开始关注这块大陆上，每年有大约五十万人死于疟疾这一事实。

But we are sure as hell going to bring you computers.但我们至少能够给大家带来计算机。

Before I went to Soweto, I thought I understood the world’s problems but I was blind to many of the most important ones.在我去索韦托之前，我以为我了解世界的问题，事实上我对很多问题都一无所知。

I was so taken aback by what I saw that I had to ask myself, did I still believe that innovation could solve the world’s toughest problems? 亲眼所见的情形让我非常惊讶，我不得不问自己我还相信创新能够解决世界上最困难的问题吗？

I promised myself that before I came back to Africa, I would find out more about what keeps people poor.我许下承若要在下次回到非洲之前，更了解到底是什么导致了人们的持续贫穷。Over the years, Melinda and I did learn more about the pressing needs of the poor.这些年来，我和梅琳达确实更了解穷人的急切需求。

On a later trip to South Africa, I paid a visit to a hospital for patients with MDR-TB, multidrug resistant tuberculosis, a disease with a cure rate of under 59%.在之后一次去南非的过程中，我造访了一家治疗MDR-TB病人的医院，MDR-TB也就是多耐药肺结核，这种疾病的治愈率低于50%。I remember that hospital as a place of despair.我还记得那所医院是一个充满绝望的地方。

It was a giant open ward, with a sea of patients shuffling around in pajamas, wearing masks.一个开放式的巨大病房中，到处都是身着病服和口罩，驮着沉重步伐走动的病人。There was one floor just for children, including some babies lying in bed.有一层楼专门容纳儿童病人，包括刚出生不久的婴儿。

They had a little school for kids who were well enough to learn, but many of the children couldn’t make it, and the hospital didn’t seem to know whether it was worth it to keep the school open.这里还有一所小型学校，为身体条件足够好的孩子们准备，但很多孩子都没好转到能够上学，医院不知道开这么一所学校是否值得。I talked to a patient there in her early 30s.我同以为三十岁出头的年轻女患者谈了谈。

She had been a worker at a TB hospital when she came down with a cough.她之前在一家结合并医院当护工，结果自己也开始咳嗽。She went to a doctor and said she had drug-resistant TB.她去看医生，医生说她得了耐药性结核病。She was later diagnosed with AIDS.之后她又被确诊患有艾滋病。

She wasn’t going to live much longer.But there were plenty of MDR patients, waiting to take her bed when she vacated it.她估计活不了多久，但还有很多肺结核患者等待这她死后腾出的病床。This was hell with a waiting list.这是一个排队等待死亡的地狱。

But seeing this hell didn’t reduce my optimism.It channeled it.看到这个地狱并没有挫败我的乐观态度。而是为我指引了方向。

I got into the car as I left and I told the doctor we were working with, I know MDR-TB is hard to cure, but we must do something for these people.离开的时候，我钻进车里告诉与我们共事的医生，我知道MDR-TB很难治愈，但我们必须为这些人们做点什么。

And, in fact, this year, we are entering phase three with the new TB drug regime for patients who respond, instead of a 50% cure rate after 18 months for $2000, we get an 80% cure rate after six months under $100.实际上，就在今年，我们进入了一种新结核药的第三阶段，对于响应的患者，情况不再是2000美元价格，治疗18个月治愈率50%，而是不到100美元的价格，治疗6个月治愈率80%。

Optimism is often dismissed as false hope.But there is also false hopelessness.乐观经常会由于错误的希望而消散。但错误的绝望同样存在。

That’s the attitude that says we can’t defeat poverty and disease.We absolutely can.这种态度总在告诉我们，我们无法打败贫穷和疾病。实际上我们肯定能打败。

Melinda: Bill called me that day after he visited the TB hospital and normally if one of us is on an international trip, we will go through our agenda for the day and who we met and where we have been.那天造访结合医院后，比尔打电话给我，如果我们俩有人要到国外出差，一般情况下，我们都会对去哪以及见谁有一个计划。

But this call was different.Bill said to me, Melinda, I have been somewhere that I have never been before.但这通电话很特别。比尔跟我说，梅琳达我去了一个从没去过的地方。And then he coked up and he couldn’t go on.然后他有些哽咽有些话说不出来。

And he finally just said, I will tell you more when I get home.最后他说等我回来以后再跟你仔细讲。

And I knew what he was going through because when you see people with so little hope, it breaks your heart.我能了解他正经受着什么，当你看到有人如此缺乏希望时，你会感到心碎。

But if you want to do the most, you have to go see the worst, and I’ve had days like that too.但要想做得最多，你必须看到最糟的真相。我也有过这样的经历。

About ten years ago, I traveled with a group of friends to India.On last day I was there, I had a meeting with a group of prostitutes, and I expected to talk to them about the risk of AIDS that they were facing, but what they wanted to talk to me about was stigma.大约十年前我和一帮朋友去了印度。待在那里的最后一天我见了一群妓女，跟她们讨论她们所面临的艾滋病威胁，但她们想跟我讲的确实污名。Many of these women had been abandoned by their husbands.她们很多人都被丈夫抛弃了。

That’s why they even went into prostitution.不得已靠卖身为生。

They wanted to be able to feed their children.她们必须想办法养活自己的孩子。

They were so low in the eyes of society that they could be raped and robbed and beaten by anyone, even the police, and nobody cared.她们在社会的眼中如此卑贱以至于任何人甚至警察都可以随意强奸抢劫和殴打她们，但却没人关心。

Talking to them about their lives was so moving to me, but what I remember most was how much they wanted to be touched.同她们的对话让我动容，我印象最深刻的是她们很希望同人接触。They wanted to touch me and to be touched by them.她们希望接触我也希望我接触她们。

It was if physical contact somehow proved their worth.似乎只有通过这种身体接触，她们才能体会到自己的存在价值。

And so before I left, we linked arms hand in hand and did a photo together.于是我在离开之前，同她们手拉手照了合影。

Later that same day, I spent some time in India in a home for the dying.还是那一天，我后来又去了一所垂死之家。

I walked into a large hall and I saw rows and rows of cots, and every cot was attended to except for one, that was far off in the corner.And so I decided to go over there.我走过大厅看到一排排病床，每张病床都有人照料，除了角落里的那张略显孤独。于是我决定过去看看。

The patient who was in this room was a woman in her 30s.And I remember her eyes.床上是以为三十多岁的女性。我深深记得她的眼睛。

She had these huge, brown, sorrowful eyes.She was emaciated and on the verge of death and her intestines were not holding anything and so the workers had put a pan under her bed, cut a hole in bottom of the bed, and everything in her was just pouring out into that pan.她有一对充满悲伤的棕色大眼睛。她很消瘦离死亡已不遥远，她的肚子里已经无法容纳任何东西，义工们不得不将床板切一个洞，并将盆子放到床下，她体内的一切就这样倾泻到盆子里。

I could tell that she had AIDS.Both in the way she looked and the fact that she was off in this corner alone.我可以看出她患有艾滋病。她有一些症状而且被安排在这个孤独的角落更说明了这一点。The stigma of AIDS is vicious, especially for women.And the punishment is abandonment.艾滋病的污名是恶劣的，特别是对于女性。而惩罚便是被抛弃。When I arrived at her cot, I suddenly felt completely and totally helpless.我到了她的病床前，我感到的是完全的无助。

I had absolutely nothing I could offer this woman.I knew I couldn’t save her.But I didn’t want her to be alone.我没有什么能给这位女性的。我没办法挽救她的生命。但我不认看到她那么孤独。

So I knelt down with her and put my hand out..She reached for my hand and grasped it and she wouldn’t let it go.于是跪在她身旁，把手伸给他。她抓住我的手久久不愿放开。

I didn’t speak her language.And I couldn’t think of what I should say to her.我不会讲她的语言，我也不知道该对她说什么。And finally I just said to her, it’s going to be okay.最后我只能说 没事的。

It’s going to be okay.It’s not your fault.没事的，这不是你的错。

And after I had been with her for sometime, she started pointing to the roof top.She clearly wanted to go up and I realized the sun was going down and what she wanted to do was so up on the roof and see the sunset.我同他相处了一段时间，她指向屋顶。她显然是想上去，我意识到太阳就快下山。她肯定是想到屋顶看日落。

The workers in this home for the dying were very busy.I said to them can we take her up on the roof top? And they said, “No.No.We have to pass out medicines.”

垂死之家的义工都非常忙碌。我们她们能否帮忙把她抬上屋顶？她们说：“不行，我们还需要非法药物。”

I waited that for that to happen and I asked another worker and they said “No no no, we are too busy.We can’t get her up there.”

我等着她们做完我又问了另一个义工“不行不行，我们太忙了，没时间把她抬上去。” And so finally, I just scooped this woman up in my arms.最后我只能自己将这位女性用手搂起。

She was nothing more than skin over bones and I took her up on the roof top and I found one of those plastic chairs that blows over in the light breeze.I put her there and sat her down, and put a blanket over her legs and she sat there facing to the west, watching the sunset.她几乎痩的只剩皮包骨头了，我将她搀扶到屋顶，找了一张被人遗忘的在微风中的塑料椅子，让她坐在椅子上，用毛毯盖上她的双腿，她坐在那里，面朝西方，静静的看着日落。

The workers knew—I made sure they knew that she was up there so that they would bring her down after later that evening after the sun went down and then I had to leave.我告诉义工们她在上面，让她们晚上日落后把她搬下来，然后我不得不离开。But she never left me.但对她的记忆却在心中挥之不去。

I felt completely and totally inadequate in the face of this woman’s death.听到这位女性死去的消息我觉得自己完全没有做好心理准备。

But sometimes, it’s the people that you can’t help that inspire you the most.有时正是那些你帮不了的人对你心灵的震撼最大。

I knew that those sex worker I had met in the morning could be the woman that I carried upstairs later that evening, unless we found a way to defy the stigma that hung over their lives.我知道白天我碰到的那些性工作者，以后很有可能就会变成那天晚上我扶上楼的那位女性，除非我们能够找到办法，为她们洗脱身上无法摆脱的污名。

Over the past ten years, our Foundation has helped sex workers build support groups so they could empower one another to speak up and demand safe sex and that their clients use condoms.过去十年来 我们基金会帮助性工作者建立起很多支持小组 让他们有能力互相鼓励发出声音 要求安全的性交易 要求客人使用安全套。

Their brave efforts have helped to keep HIV prevalence low among sex workers and a lot of studies show that’s the big reason why the AIDS epidemic has not exploded in India.她们的努力让性工作者的艾滋病发病率保持较低水平，很多研究显示这也正是艾滋病没有在印度大范围暴发的重要原因。

When these sex workers gather together to help stop AIDS transmission, something unexpected and wonderful happened.性工作者们聚在一起帮助阻止艾滋病传播的同时，又发生了一件令人意想不到的奇妙事情。The community they formed became a platform for everything.她们组成的群体为自身权益的伸张筑起了平台。

Police and others who raped and robbed them couldn’t get away with it anymore.强奸 抢劫她们的警察和其他人不能再逍遥法外。

The women set up systems to encourage savings for one another and with those savings, they were able to leave sex work.这些女性组织起了一个鼓励大家存钱的体系，通过这些存款 不少人得以脱离性工作。This was all done by people that society considered the lowest of the low.这些都是被社会认为最下等的人们所做的。

Optimism, for me, is not a passive expectation that things are going to get better.乐观在我看来，并不是一种认为未来会变美好的被动期望。For me, it’s a conviction and a belief that we can make things better.而是一种信念 相信我们能用自己的双手让未来变的更好。

So no matter how much suffering we see, no matter how bad it is, we can help people if we don’t lose hope and if we don’t look away.无论我们遭受了多少苦难 无论境况有多糟糕，只要不丧失希望 不假装没看见我们就能帮助这些人。

Bill: Melinda and I have described some devastating scenes, but we want to make the strongest case we can for the power of optimism.我和梅琳达都讲述了灾难性的情景，但我们愿意以最好的期许 相信乐观的力量。

Even in dire situations, optimism fuels innovation and leads to new approaches that eliminate suffering.越是在极端恶劣的情形下，乐观越能激发出创新 为消除苦难找出新的方法。But if you never really see the people who are suffering, your optimism can’t help them.但如果你没亲眼见过遭受苦难的人们，你的乐观将帮不到她们。You will never change their world.你也永远无法改变他们的世界。

And that brings me to what I see is a paradox.这在我看来是一个巨大的悖论。

The modern world is an incredible source of innovation and Stanford stands at the center of that, creating new companies, new schools of thought, prize-winning professors, inspired art and literature, miracle drugs, and amazing graduates.现代世界是一个无可比拟的创新之源，斯坦福则位于这一切的中心，创立起新公司和新的思想学派，充满获奖教授，启迪指示和智慧，研发出神奇药物，培养出了不起的毕业生。Whether you are a scientist with a new discovery, or working in the trenches to understand the needs of the most marginalized, you are advancing amazing breakthroughs in what human beings can do for each other.无论你是得到新发现的科学家，还是奋战于满足边缘人群需求最前线的人，你都是在推动人类相互帮助上的伟大突破。

At the same time, if you ask people across the United States is the future going to be better than the past, most say no.My kids will be worse off than I am.同时在美国范围内如果你问人们未来会比过去号码，大多数人说不会。我的子孙会比我过的糟糕。

They think innovation won’t make the world better for them or their children.他们认为创新不会让她们及子孙的世界变得更好。So who is right? 到底谁对呢？

The people who say innovation will create new possibilities and make the world better? Or the people who see a trend toward inequality and a decline in opportunity and don’t think innovation will change that? 是那些声称创新能够创造新机遇并让世界变得更好的人，还是那些认为不平等会加重，机会会减少，不认为创新能够改变这些趋势的人？

The pessimists are wrong, in my view.But they are not crazy.在我看来，悲观主义者是错误的。但她们的想法并不疯狂。

If innovation is purely market driven, and we don’t focus on the big inequalities, then we could have amazing advances in inventions that leave the world even more divided.如果创新纯粹是市场驱使的，没人关心不平等的加剧，那么世界就算有再多美妙发明也是白搭，只能让世界分化越发严重。

We won’t improve public schools.We won’t end malaria.We won’t end poverty.We won’t develop the innovations poor farmers need to grow food in a changing climate.我们将无法改善公立学校条件，我们将无法根除疟疾，我们将无法根除贫穷。我们将无法开发出贫苦农民所需的创新，让她们能在变化的气候条件下种出作物。

If our optimism doesn’t address the problems that affect so many of our fellow human beings, then our optimism needs more empathy.If empathy channels our optimism, we will see the poverty and the disease and the poor schools.如果我们的乐观不能解决这些问题，不能帮助很多需要帮助的同胞，那么这种乐观就需要更多同情心。如果同情心能够引导我们的乐观，我们就肯定能看到贫困，疾病和糟糕的教育条件。

We will answer with our innovations and we will surprise the pessimists.我们就肯定能通过创新给我答案，我们就肯定能让悲观主义者大吃一惊。

Over the next generation, you, Stanford graduates, will lead a new weave of innovation.在下一代，你们这些斯坦福毕业生将会引领新一波创新。Which problems will you decide to solve? 你们决定处理哪些问题？

If your world is wide, you can create the future we all want.如果你们的世界观足够宽广你们将恩那个创建出我们所有人都想要的未来。If your world is narrow, you may create the future the pessimists fear.如果你们的世界观太过狭窄，你们就有可能创建出悲观主义者们所害怕的未来。

I started learning in Soweto, that if we are going to make our optimism matter to everyone, and empower people everywhere, we have to see the lives of those most in need.从索韦托开始我开始了解到，如果我们要将这份乐观传递给每个人，让所有地方的人都获得力量，我们需要首先去感受那些需求最迫切者的生活。

If we have optimism, without empathy, then it doesn’t matter how much we master the secrets of science.如果我们指示乐观而没有同情心，那么对科学秘密掌握得再好也将毫无用处。

We are not really solving problems.We are just working on puzzles.I think most of you have a broader view than I had at your age.You can do better at this than I did.因为我们并不是在解决问题，而是仅仅在做一些智力题。我想你们大多数人，世界观都比我在你们这么大时更加宽广。你们肯定能够比我做到更好。

If you put your hearts and minds to it, you can surprise the pessimists.We are eager to see it.只要全心全意的投入进来，我们就必然能让悲观主义者震惊。我们很像看到你们创造的未来。Melinda: So let your heart break.It will change what you do with your optimism.让自己沉浸于心碎。这会改变你们对乐观的理解。

On a trip to South Asia, I met a desperately poor Indian woman who had two children and she begged me to take them home with me.有一次去南亚，我碰到了以为赤贫的印度女性，她有两个孩子，她请求我把这两个孩子带回去领养。

And when I begged her for her forgiveness she said, well, then please, just take one of them.在我请她原谅我的无能为力时她说，那请你领养其中一个孩子行吗。

On another trip to south Los Angeles, I met with a group of the students from a tough neighborhood.A young girl said to me, do you ever feel like we are the kids whose parents shirked their responsibilities and we are just the leftovers? 还有一次我去南洛杉矶，见了一群来自艰苦社区的学生。一个小女孩跟我说，你有没有觉得我们这些孩子都被父母放置不理，我们只不过是多余的东西。These women broke my heart.And they still do.这些女性让我感到心碎。现在仍然如此。

And the empathy intensifies if I admit to myself, that could be me.如果想想“这也可能是我”同情心便会越发强烈。

When I talk with the mothers I meet during my travels, there’s no difference between what we want for our children.The only difference is our ability to provide it to our children.我在其他地方碰到过很多母亲。我们想为子女提供的东西其实并没有太大差别。唯一差别在于我们为子女提供这些东西的能力。So what accounts for that difference? 这中差异是如何造成的？

Bill and I talk about this with our own kids around the dinner table.我和比尔在餐桌上同我们自己的孩子讨论这个问题。

Bill worked incredibly hard and he took risks and he made sacrifices for success.比尔工作无比努力，他冒过很多风险，做过很多牺牲采取的了今天的成功。

But there’s another essential ingredient of success, and that is luck.Absolute and total luck.但成功还有另外一个很重要的成分那就是运气。完全纯粹的运气。When were you born? Who are your parents? Where did you grow up? 你出生在什么年代，你的父母是谁？你在那里长大？ None of us earn these things.These things were given to us.我们谁都不能挣得这些，这些都是被给予的。

So when we strip away all of our privilege and we consider where we would be without them, it becomes someone much easier to see someone who is poor and say, that could be me.And that’s empathy.当我们去除掉所有的优势，考虑我们没有这些优势。这就是同情心。

Empathy tears down barriers, and it opens up whole new frontiers for optimism.So here is our appeal to you all.As you leave Stanford, take all your genius and your optimism and your empathy, and go change the world in ways that will make millions of people optimistic.同情推到一切障碍，并且打开乐观的新视野。这里有很大的吸引力。

You don’t have to rush.You have careers to launch and debts to pay and spouses to meet and marry.That’s plenty enough for right now.But in the course of your lives, perhaps without any plan on your part, you will see suffering that’s going to break your heart.And when it happens, don’t turn away from it.That’s the moment that change is born.Congratulations and good luck to the class of 2014!

第四篇：奥普拉在斯坦福大学演讲文本

Thank you, President Hennessy, and to the trustees and the faculty, to all of the parents and grandparents, to you, the Stanford graduates.Thank you for letting me share this amazing day with you.I need to begin by letting everyone in on a little secret.The secret is that Kirby Bumpus, Stanford Class of '08, is my goddaughter.So, I was thrilled when President Hennessy asked me to be your Commencement speaker, because this is the first time I've been allowed on campus since Kirby's been here.You see, Kirby's a very smart girl.She wants people to get to know her on her own terms, she says.Not in terms of who she knows.So, she never wants anyone who's first meeting her to know that I know her and she knows me.So, when she first came to Stanford for new student orientation with her mom, I hear that they arrived and everybody was so welcoming, and somebody came up to Kirby and they said, “Ohmigod, that's Gayle King!” Because a lot of people know Gayle King as my BFF [best friend forever].And so somebody comes up to Kirby, and they say, “Ohmigod, is that Gayle King?” And Kirby's like, “Uh-huh.She's my mom.” And so the person says, “Ohmigod, does it mean, like, you know Oprah Winfrey?” And Kirby says, “Sort of.” I said, “Sort of? You sort of know me?” Well, I have photographic proof.I have pictures which I can e-mail to you all of Kirby riding horsey with me on all fours.So, I more than sort-of know Kirby Bumpus.And I'm so happy to be here, just happy that I finally, after four years, get to see her room.There's really nowhere else I'd rather be, because I'm so proud of Kirby, who graduates today with two degrees, one in human bio and the other in psychology.Love you, Kirby Cakes!That's how well I know her.I can call her Cakes.And so proud of her mother and father, who helped her get through this time, and her brother, Will.I really had nothing to do with her graduating from Stanford, but every time anybody's asked me in the past couple of weeks what I was doing, I would say, “I'm getting ready to go to Stanford.” I just love saying “Stanford.” Because the truth is, I know I would have never gotten my degree at all, 'cause I didn't go to Stanford.I went to Tennessee State University.But I never would have gotten my diploma at all, because I was supposed to graduate back in 1975, but I was short one credit.And I figured, I'm just going to forget it, 'cause, you know, I'm not going to march with my class.Because by that point, I was already on television.I'd been in television since I was 19 and a sophomore.Granted, I was the only television anchor person that had an 11 o'clock curfew doing the 10 o'clock news.Seriously, my dad was like, “Well, that news is over at 10:30.Be home by 11.” But that didn't matter to me, because I was earning a living.I was on my way.So, I thought, I'm going to let this college thing go and I only had one credit short.But, my father, from that time on and for years after, was always on my case, because I did not graduate.He'd say, “Oprah Gail”—that's my middle name—“I don't know what you're gonna do without that degree.” And I'd say, “But, Dad, I have my own television show.” And he'd say, “Well, I still don't know what you're going to do without that degree.” And I'd say, “But, Dad, now I'm a talk show host.” He'd say, “I don't know how you're going to get another job without that degree.” So, in 1987, Tennessee State University invited me back to speak at their commencement.By then, I had my own show, was nationally syndicated.I'd made a movie, had been nominated for an Oscar and founded my company, Harpo.But I told them, I cannot come and give a speech unless I can earn one more credit, because my dad's still saying I'm not going to get anywhere without that degree.So, I finished my coursework, I turned in my final paper and I got the degree.And my dad was very proud.And I know that, if anything happens, that one credit will be my salvation.But I also know why my dad was insisting on that diploma, because, as B.B.King put it, “The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take that away from you.” And learning is really in the broadest sense what I want to talk about today, because your education, of course, isn't ending here.In many ways, it's only just begun.The world has so many lessons to teach you.I consider the world, this Earth, to be like a school and our life the classrooms.And sometimes here in this Planet Earth school the lessons often come dressed up as detours or roadblocks.And sometimes as full-blown crises.And the secret I've learned to getting ahead is being open to the lessons, lessons from the grandest university of all, that is, the universe itself.It's being able to walk through life eager and open to self-improvement and that which is going to best help you evolve, 'cause that's really why we're here, to evolve as human beings.To grow into more of ourselves, always moving to the next level of understanding, the next level of compassion and growth.I think about one of the greatest compliments I've ever received: I interviewed with a reporter when I was first starting out in Chicago.And then many years later, I saw the same reporter.And she said to me, “You know what? You really haven't changed.You've just become more of yourself.” And that is really what we're all trying to do, become more of ourselves.And I believe that there's a lesson in almost everything that you do and every experience, and getting the lesson is how you move forward.It's how you enrich your spirit.And, trust me, I know that inner wisdom is more precious than wealth.The more you spend it, the more you gain.So, today, I just want to share a few lessons—meaning three—that I've learned in my journey so far.And aren't you glad? Don't you hate it when somebody says, “I'm going to share a few,” and it's 10 lessons later? And, you're like, “Listen, this is my graduation.This is not about you.” So, it's only going to be three.The three lessons that have had the greatest impact on my life have to do with feelings, with failure and with finding happiness.A year after I left college, I was given the opportunity to co-anchor the 6 o'clock news in Baltimore, because the whole goal in the media at the time I was coming up was you try to move to larger markets.And Baltimore was a much larger market than Nashville.So, getting the 6 o'clock news co-anchor job at 22 was such a big deal.It felt like the biggest deal in the world at the time.And I was so proud, because I was finally going to have my chance to be like Barbara Walters, which is who I had been trying to emulate since the start of my TV career.So, I was 22 years old, making $22,000 a year.And it's where I met my best friend, Gayle, who was an intern at the same TV station.And once we became friends, we'd say, “Ohmigod, I can't believe it!You're making $22,000 and you're only 22.Imagine when you're 40 and you're making $40,000!” When I turned 40, I was so glad that didn't happen.So, here I am, 22, making $22,000 a year and, yet, it didn't feel right.It didn't feel right.The first sign, as President Hennessy was saying, was when they tried to change my name.The news director said to me at the time, “Nobody's going to remember Oprah.So, we want to change your name.We've come up with a name we think that people will remember and people will like.It's a friendly name: Suzie.” Hi, Suzie.Very friendly.You can't be angry with Suzie.Remember Suzie.But my name wasn't Suzie.And, you know, I'd grown up not really loving my name, because when you're looking for your little name on the lunch boxes and the license plate tags, you're never going to find Oprah.So, I grew up not loving the name, but once I was asked to change it, I thought, well, it is my name and do I look like a Suzie to you? So, I thought, no, it doesn't feel right.I'm not going to change my name.And if people remember it or not, that's OK.And then they said they didn't like the way I looked.This was in 1976, when your boss could call you in and say, “I don't like the way you look.” Now that would be called a lawsuit, but back then they could just say, “I don't like the way you look.” Which, in case some of you in the back, if you can't tell, is nothing like Barbara Walters.So, they sent me to a salon where they gave me a perm, and after a few days all my hair fell out and I had to shave my head.And then they really didn't like the way I looked.Because now I am black and bald and sitting on TV.Not a pretty picture.But even worse than being bald, I really hated, hated, hated being sent to report on other people's tragedies as a part of my daily duty, knowing that I was just expected to observe, when everything in my instinct told me that I should be doing something, I should be lending a hand.So, as President Hennessy said, I'd cover a fire and then I'd go back and I'd try to give the victims blankets.And I wouldn't be able to sleep at night because of all the things I was covering during the day.And, meanwhile, I was trying to sit gracefully like Barbara and make myself talk like Barbara.And I thought, well, I could make a pretty goofy Barbara.And if I could figure out how to be myself, I could be a pretty good Oprah.I was trying to sound elegant like Barbara.And sometimes I didn't read my copy, because something inside me said, this should be spontaneous.So, I wanted to get the news as I was giving it to the people.So, sometimes, I wouldn't read my copy and it would be, like, six people on a pileup on I-40.Oh, my goodness.And sometimes I wouldn't read the copy—because I wanted to be spontaneous—and I'd come across a list of words I didn't know and I'd mispronounce.And one day I was reading copy and I called Canada “ca nada.” And I decided, this Barbara thing's not going too well.I should try being myself.But at the same time, my dad was saying, “Oprah Gail, this is an opportunity of a lifetime.You better keep that job.” And my boss was saying, “This is the nightly news.You're an anchor, not a social worker.Just do your job.” So, I was juggling these messages of expectation and obligation and feeling really miserable with myself.I'd go home at night and fill up my journals, 'cause I've kept a journal since I was 15—so I now have volumes of journals.So, I'd go home at night and fill up my journals about how miserable I was and frustrated.Then I'd eat my anxiety.That's where I learned that habit.And after eight months, I lost that job.They said I was too emotional.I was too much.But since they didn't want to pay out the contract, they put me on a talk show in Baltimore.And the moment I sat down on that show, the moment I did, I felt like I'd come home.I realized that TV could be more than just a playground, but a platform for service, for helping other people lift their lives.And the moment I sat down, doing that talk show, it felt like breathing.It felt right.And that's where everything that followed for me began.And I got that lesson.When you're doing the work you're meant to do, it feels right and every day is a bonus, regardless of what you're getting paid.It's true.And how do you know when you're doing something right? How do you know that? It feels so.What I know now is that feelings are really your GPS system for life.When you're supposed to do something or not supposed to do something, your emotional guidance system lets you know.The trick is to learn to check your ego at the door and start checking your gut instead.Every right decision I've made—every right decision I've ever made—has come from my gut.And every wrong decision I've ever made was a result of me not listening to the greater voice of myself.If it doesn't feel right, don't do it.That's the lesson.And that lesson alone will save you, my friends, a lot of grief.Even doubt means don't.This is what I've learned.There are many times when you don't know what to do.When you don't know what to do, get still, get very still, until you do know what to do.And when you do get still and let your internal motivation be the driver, not only will your personal life improve, but you will gain a competitive edge in the working world as well.Because, as Daniel Pink writes in his best-seller, A Whole New Mind, we're entering a whole new age.And he calls it the Conceptual Age, where traits that set people apart today are going to come from our hearts—right brain—as well as our heads.It's no longer just the logical, linear, rules-based thinking that matters, he says.It's also empathy and joyfulness and purpose, inner traits that have transcendent worth.These qualities bloom when we're doing what we love, when we're involving the wholeness of ourselves in our work, both our expertise and our emotion.So, I say to you, forget about the fast lane.If you really want to fly, just harness your power to your passion.Honor your calling.Everybody has one.Trust your heart and success will come to you.So, how do I define success? Let me tell you, money's pretty nice.I'm not going to stand up here and tell you that it's not about money, 'cause money is very nice.I like money.It's good for buying things.But having a lot of money does not automatically make you a successful person.What you want is money and meaning.You want your work to be meaningful.Because meaning is what brings the real richness to your life.What you really want is to be surrounded by people you trust and treasure and by people who cherish you.That's when you're really rich.So, lesson one, follow your feelings.If it feels right, move forward.If it doesn't feel right, don't do it.Now I want to talk a little bit about failings, because nobody's journey is seamless or smooth.We all stumble.We all have setbacks.If things go wrong, you hit a dead end—as you will—it's just life's way of saying time to change course.So, ask every failure—this is what I do with every failure, every crisis, every difficult time—I say, what is this here to teach me? And as soon as you get the lesson, you get to move on.If you really get the lesson, you pass and you don't have to repeat the class.If you don't get the lesson, it shows up wearing another pair of pants—or skirt—to give you some remedial work.And what I've found is that difficulties come when you don't pay attention to life's whisper, because life always whispers to you first.And if you ignore the whisper, sooner or later you'll get a scream.Whatever you resist persists.But, if you ask the right question—not why is this happening, but what is this here to teach me?—it puts you in the place and space to get the lesson you need.My friend Eckhart Tolle, who's written this wonderful book called A New Earth that's all about letting the awareness of who you are stimulate everything that you do, he puts it like this: He says, don't react against a bad situation;merge with that situation instead.And the solution will arise from the challenge.Because surrendering yourself doesn't mean giving up;it means acting with responsibility.Many of you know that, as President Hennessy said, I started this school in Africa.And I founded the school, where I'm trying to give South African girls a shot at a future like yours—Stanford.And I spent five years making sure that school would be as beautiful as the students.I wanted every girl to feel her worth reflected in her surroundings.So, I checked every blueprint, I picked every pillow.I was looking at the grout in between the bricks.I knew every thread count of the sheets.I chose every girl from the villages, from nine provinces.And yet, last fall, I was faced with a crisis I had never anticipated.I was told that one of the dorm matrons was suspected of sexual abuse.That was, as you can imagine, devastating news.First, I cried—actually, I sobbed—for about half an hour.And then I said, let's get to it;that's all you get, a half an hour.You need to focus on the now, what you need to do now.So, I contacted a child trauma specialist.I put together a team of investigators.I made sure the girls had counseling and support.And Gayle and I got on a plane and flew to South Africa.And the whole time I kept asking that question: What is this here to teach me? And, as difficult as that experience has been, I got a lot of lessons.I understand now the mistakes I made, because I had been paying attention to all of the wrong things.I'd built that school from the outside in, when what really mattered was the inside out.So, it's a lesson that applies to all of our lives as a whole.What matters most is what's inside.What matters most is the sense of integrity, of quality and beauty.I got that lesson.And what I know is that the girls came away with something, too.They have emerged from this more resilient and knowing that their voices have power.And their resilience and spirit have given me more than I could ever give to them, which leads me to my final lesson—the one about finding happiness—which we could talk about all day, but I know you have other wacky things to do.Not a small topic this is, finding happiness.But in some ways I think it's the simplest of all.Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a poem for her children.It's called “Speech to the Young : Speech to the Progress-Toward.” And she says at the end, “Live not for battles won./ Live not for the-end-of-the-song./ Live in the along.” She's saying, like Eckhart Tolle, that you have to live for the present.You have to be in the moment.Whatever has happened to you in your past has no power over this present moment, because life is now.But I think she's also saying, be a part of something.Don't live for yourself alone.This is what I know for sure: In order to be truly happy, you must live along with and you have to stand for something larger than yourself.Because life is a reciprocal exchange.To move forward you have to give back.And to me, that is the greatest lesson of life.To be happy, you have to give something back.I know you know that, because that's a lesson that's woven into the very fabric of this university.It's a lesson that Jane and Leland Stanford got and one they've bequeathed to you.Because all of you know the story of how this great school came to be, how the Stanfords lost their only child to typhoid at the age of 15.They had every right and they had every reason to turn their backs against the world at that time, but instead, they channeled their grief and their pain into an act of grace.Within a year of their son's death, they had made the founding grant for this great school, pledging to do for other people's children what they were not able to do for their own boy.The lesson here is clear, and that is, if you're hurting, you need to help somebody ease their hurt.If you're in pain, help somebody else's pain.And when you're in a mess, you get yourself out of the mess helping somebody out of theirs.And in the process, you get to become a member of what I call the greatest fellowship of all, the sorority of compassion and the fraternity of service.The Stanfords had suffered the worst thing any mom and dad can ever endure, yet they understood that helping others is the way we help ourselves.And this wisdom is increasingly supported by scientific and sociological research.It's no longer just woo-woo soft-skills talk.There's actually a helper's high, a spiritual surge you gain from serving others.So, if you want to feel good, you have to go out and do some good.But when you do good, I hope you strive for more than just the good feeling that service provides, because I know this for sure, that doing good actually makes you better.So, whatever field you choose, if you operate from the paradigm of service, I know your life will have more value and you will be happy.I was always happy doing my talk show, but that happiness reached a depth of fulfillment, of joy, that I really can't describe to you or measure when I stopped just being on TV and looking at TV as a job and decided to use television, to use it and not have it use me, to use it as a platform to serve my viewers.That alone changed the trajectory of my success.So, I know this—that whether you're an actor, you offer your talent in the way that most inspires art.If you're an anatomist, you look at your gift as knowledge and service to healing.Whether you've been called, as so many of you here today getting doctorates and other degrees, to the professions of business, law, engineering, humanities, science, medicine, if you choose to offer your skills and talent in service, when you choose the paradigm of service, looking at life through that paradigm, it turns everything you do from a job into a gift.And I know you haven't spent all this time at Stanford just to go out and get a job.You've been enriched in countless ways.There's no better way to make your mark on the world and to share that abundance with others.My constant prayer for myself is to be used in service for the greater good.So, let me end with one of my favorite quotes from Martin Luther King.Dr.King said, “Not everybody can be famous.” And I don't know, but everybody today seems to want to be famous.But fame is a trip.People follow you to the bathroom, listen to you pee.It's just—try to pee quietly.It doesn't matter, they come out and say, “Ohmigod, it's you.You peed.” That's the fame trip, so I don't know if you want that.So, Dr.King said, “Not everybody can be famous.But everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.” Those of you who are history scholars may know the rest of that passage.He said, “You don't have to have a college degree to serve.You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.You don't have to know about Plato or Aristotle to serve.You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve.You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.You only need a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love.” In a few moments, you'll all be officially Stanford's '08.You have the heart and the smarts to go with it.And it's up to you to decide, really, where will you now use those gifts? You've got the diploma, so go out and get the lessons, 'cause I know great things are sure to come.You know, I've always believed that everything is better when you share it, so before I go, I wanted to share a graduation gift with you.Underneath your seats you'll find two of my favorite books.Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth is my current book club selection.Our New Earth webcast has been downloaded 30 million times with that book.And Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future has reassured me I'm in the right direction.I really wanted to give you cars but I just couldn't pull that off!Congratulations, '08!Thank you.Thank you

第五篇：乔布斯在斯坦福大学演讲全文

乔布斯在斯坦福大学演讲全文：'You've got to find what you love,' 来源： 蒋文轩的日志

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.I never graduated from college.Truth be told, 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.The first story is about connecting the dots.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? 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.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 interesting.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: 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.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.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.This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.My second story is about love and loss.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.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.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.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 I'm fine now.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: 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.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.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.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.Stay Hungry.Stay Foolish.Thank you all very much