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英语美文精华:实践与坚持等

  Application and Perseverance

  实践与坚持


  The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means, and the exercise of ordinary qualities. The common life of every day, affords ample opportunities for acquiring experience of the best kind.

  人生最大的收获往往是通过最简单的方法或对常识的准确应用而获得的。每一个平凡的日子都会为我们提供许多机会, 并使我们的阅历有所增强。

  Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators. In the pursuit of even the highest branches of human inquiry, the commoner qualities are found the most useful,such as common sense, attention, application, and perseverance.

  人们常常认为:机会是可遇而不可求的。而那些懂得细心观察生活的人往往会发现:机会总是更偏向于勤勉的人,正如海风与波浪经常会与航海家做伴一样。哪怕是在对人类事业的最高追求上,实践也是最有效的途径之一。当然,顽强的毅力也是必不可少的。

  Genius may not be necessary, though even genius of the highest sort does not disdain the use of these ordinary qualities. The very greatest men have been among the least believers in the power of genius, and as worldly wise and persevering as successful men of the commoner sort. Some have even defined genius to be only common sense intensified. A distinguished teacher and president of a college spoke of it as the power of making ef forts. John Foster held it to be the power of lighting one's own fire.

  天赋并不是获取成功的制胜法宝,即便是天才也同样会意识到常识的重要性。事实上,一些伟大人物往往是那些最不相信天赋的人。真正的智者和成功人士也并非在哪一方面特别出众,甚至他们曾被认为是缺少天赋的人。没错,他们之所以能够获得成功正是凭借着扎实的基本功,对基本常识的强化训练。一位校长兼优秀教师曾说过,他的成功源自不懈的努力。约翰•福斯特则把这种力量称之为“点燃生活的火焰“。

  


  Newton's was unquestionably a mind of the very highest order, and yet, when asked by what means he had worked out his extraordinary discoveries, he modestly answered, "By always thinking unto them." At another time he thus expressed his method of study: "I keep the subject continually before me, and wait till the first dawning open slowly by little and little into a full and clear light." It was in Newton's case, as in every other,only by diligent application and perseverance that his great reputation was achieved.

  无可争议,牛顿的头脑是最高才智的头脑,但当我们问及他是通过什么方法取得了如此重大的发现时,他非常谦虚地答道:“全靠对那些问题不断地深思。“另一次,他这样表述他的研究方法:“我从未停止探索的脚步,当我看到第一缕曙光后,坚定的信念支 持着我最终看到了清晰的世界。“正是通过勤奋和实践,牛顿才最 终获得了不朽的名誉和伟大的成就。

  Dalton,the chemist,repudiated the notion of his being "a genius," attributing everything which he had accomplished to simple industry and accumulation. John Hunter said of himself, "My mind is like a beehives; but full as it is of buzz and apparent confusion, it is yet full of order and regularity, and food collected with incessant industry from the choice set stores of nature. "

  英国化学家道尔顿对世人称他为“天才“的做法进行了批判。 他认为自己之所以能获得成功完全凭借自身的不懈努力和对知识的不断积累。约翰•亨特也曾说过:“我的思想如同一个蜂箱,常常嗡嗡作响,甚至还会出现混乱,但通过不懈的努力,嗡嗡声已经消失了,蜜蜂们也都恢复了正常的秩序,而且还学会了如何从大自 然的宝库中寻找食物。“

  We have, indeed, but to glance at the biographies of great men to find that the most distinguished inventors, artists, thinkers, and workers of all kinds, owe their success, in a great measure, to their indefatigable industry and application.

  我们同样可以在诸多人物传记中看到:大多数杰出人物,无论是发明家、艺术家、思想家、工人,还是社会各界人士,都无一例外地将自己的成就归功于勤奋和实践。




  On Pleasure

  由如歌的快乐



  Pleasure is a freedom song, but it is not freedom. It is the blossoming of your desires; but it is not their fruit, it is a depth calling unto a height; but it is not the deep nor the high, it is the caged taking wing; but it is not space encompassed. Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom song. And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.

  快乐是一首自由的歌,但它不是自由。它是你们的欲望绽放的花朵,但不是它们的果实;它是深谷对高峰的呼唤,然而它既不深沉也不高耸;它是囚禁在笼中展翅的鸟儿,而不是环抱的空间。哦,的确,快乐是首自由的歌。我愿你们全心全意地歌唱它,不愿你们在歌唱时迷失自己的心。

  Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it was all, and they are judged and rebuked. I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek, for they shall find pleasure, but not her alone;seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure. Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure?

  你们年轻人中有一些追求快乐,好像它就是一切,他们已受到判决和谴责。我不会判决他们,也不会谴责他们,我会让他们去寻找。因为他们寻找的是快乐,然而也不单单是快乐;快乐有七个姐妹,她们中最小的也比她柔美。难道你们未曾听说有人在刨树根时发现了宝藏吗?

  And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness. But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement. They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer. Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted.

  你们中有一些老年人遗憾地回忆快乐,好像在追悔酒醉后做的错事。但遗憾只会让心灵蒙上阴影,而不是一种惩罚。他们应以感恩之心回忆他们的快乐,好像回忆夏曰的收获。但如果遗憾能给他们以慰藉,那就让他们得到安慰吧。

  


  And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor old to remember; and in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it.

  你们中一些人,既不是喜欢追寻的年轻人,又不是沉洒于回忆的老年人;他们在追寻和回忆的恐惧中逃避一切快乐,唯恐自己忽视或惹怒了心灵。

  But even in their foregoing is their pleasure.

  然而,在他们的前行中也有快乐。

  And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quivering hands.

  因而,即使他们用颤抖的双手挖掘树根,他们也会找到宝藏。

  But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit?

  请告诉我,谁敢惹怒灵魂呢?

  Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night,or the firefly the stars? And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind?

  夜鸾会扰乱夜的寂静,萤火虫会惹恼繁星吗?你们的火焰和烟雾会拖累风吗?

  Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff? Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being.

  你们以为灵魂是一汪止水,你们用一根木棍就可以搅乱吗?你们通常拒绝快乐,你们只是把快乐的欲望潜伏在内心中。

  Who knows but that which seem omitted today, waits for tomorrow? Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived.

  有谁知道,今天被忽略的事,明天会不会存在?甚至你们的身体也了解它的本性和合理需求,而不会被欺骗。

  And your body is the harp of your soul, and it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.

  你们的身体是你们心灵的琴弦,它或奏出柔美的乐曲,或拨弄出混乱的噪音,全都在你。

  And now you ask in your heart, "How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?" Go to your fields and your gardens and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower, but it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee, for to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, and to the flower a bee is a messenger of love, and to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.

  现在你们扪心自问:“我们将怎样区别快乐冲的善与恶呢?“去你们的田野和花园,你们就会明白蜜蜂的快乐在于采集花蜜,对于花朵而言,给蜜蜂提供花蜜就是快乐。因为蜜蜂视花朵为生命之泉,而花朵视蜜蜂为爱之使者,对于两者而言,蜜蜂与花朵,给予与接受的快乐是一种需要,一种醉人心扉的喜悦。

  People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.

  奥菲里斯城的人们,尽情享受快乐吧,就像花朵和蜜蜂一样!




  The Strenuous Life

  艰辛的人生


  A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as an individual.

  一种怠惰安逸的生活,一种仅仅是由于缺少追寻伟大事物的渴望或能力而导致的悠闲生活,对国家与个人都是毫无价值的。

  We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious efforts, the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life. It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort. Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past. A man can be freed from the necessity of work only by the fact that he or his fathers before him have worked to good purpose. If the freedom thus purchased is used aright, and the man still does actual work, though of a different kind, whether as a writer or a general, whether in the field of politics or in the field of exploration and adventure, he shows he deserves his good fortune.

  我们不欣赏那种怯懦安逸的人。我们钦佩那种表现出奋力向上的人,那种永不屈待邻人,能随时帮助朋友,但是也具有那些刚健的品质,足以在现实生活的严酷斗争中获取胜利的人。失败是难以忍受的,但更为糟糕的是从来不去努力争取成功。在人的这一生中,任何的收获都要通过努力去得到。目前不作任何的努力,只不过意味着在过去有过努力的积储。一个人不必工作,除非他或其先辈们曾经努力工作过,并取得了丰厚的收获。假如他能够把获得的这种自由加以正确地运用,仍然做些实际的工作,尽管那些工作是属于另一类的,不论是做一名作家还是将军,不论是在政界还是在探险和冒险方面做些事情,都表明了他没有辜负自己的好运。

  


  But if he treats this period of freedom from the need of actual labor as a period, not of preparation, but of mere enjoyment, even though perhaps not of vicious enjoyment, he shows that he is simply a cucumber on the earth's surface; and he surely unfits himself to hold his own place with his fellows, if the need to do so should again arise. A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world.

  但是,假如他未将这段需要从事实际工作的自由时期用于准备,而仅仅是用于享乐(即使他所从事的或许并非不良的享乐),那也就表明了他只是地球表面上的一个赘疣;而且如果那种需要再度出现的话,他肯定无法在同僚之中维持自己的地位。一种纯粹安逸的生活终究不是一种令人很满意的生活,而且,最主要的是,过那种生活的人最终肯定没有能力担当起世上之重任。

  As it is with the individual, so it is with the nation. It is a base untruth to say that happy is the nation that has no history. Thrice happy is the nation that has a glorious history. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

  对于个人是如此,对于国家也是这样。有人说一个没有历史的国家是得天独厚的,这是根本错误的。一种得天独厚的优越感来源于一个国家所具有的光荣历史。敢于挑战非比寻常的事物,去赢得光辉的胜利,即使其中掺杂着失败,那也远胜于与那些既没有享受多大快乐也没有遭受多大痛苦的平庸之辈为伍,因为他们生活在一个既享受不到胜利也不会遭遇挫败的灰暗的境界中。



  The Meditations

  沉思录


  Begin each day by telling yourself: I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence,disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness 一 all of them due to the offenders' ignorance of what is good or evil. But for my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the evildoer himself, who is my brother (not in the physical sense, but as a fellow-creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine); therefore none of those things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading. Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him; for he and I were born to work together, like a man's two hands, feet, or eyelids, or like the upper and lower rows of his teeth. To obstruct each other is against Natures law 一 and what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction...

  每天早晨醒来的时候告诉你自己:今天我将要面对纷纷扰扰,U忘恩负义,傲慢无礼,背叛与敌意,自私自利,所有这些都是那些冒犯者对善恶无知的表现。而对我来说,自己一直都深知善的真谛和崇高,恶的本质和低俗,以及施恶者的本性。那些所谓施恶者其实是我的兄弟(并非因为肉体上的接近,而是神赋予我们共同的理智和神圣)。既然如此,任何的攻击都无法伤我一根毛发,任何人都不能够将我卷入卑劣的事情。我既不会生我兄弟的气,也不会与之发生争吵,因为我们天生注定要在一起工作,就如同人的两只手,一双脚,或一对眼睑,上下两排牙齿一样紧密不可分。妨碍别人就是违反自然法则,而愤怒与厌恶只是这种妨碍的一种形式……

  


  Men seek for seclusion in the wilderness, by the seashore, or in the mountains — a dream you have cherished only too fondly yourself. But such fancies are wholly unworthy of a philosopher, since at any moment you choose you can retire within yourself. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul... avail yourself often, then, of this retirement, and so continually renew yourself. Make your rules of life brief, yet so as to embrace the fundamentals;recurrence to them will then suffice to remove all vexation, and send you back without fretting to the duties to which you must return...

  人在荒郊野外、高山海滨寻求隐居之所,愉快地追寻着自己所珍视的梦想。但是,对于一个哲人来说,这些幻想毫无必要。一个哲人可以随时选择自我隐居,最清静、不受纷扰的静修之所莫过于他的内心。善于利用好隐居所带来的好处,不断地升华自己,使你的生活规则变得简单,拥抱世间的基本规律。如此循环往复,定会消除一切烦恼,并且让你安然返回到原来的生活责任当中,而不需愤怒和焦虑……

  At day's first light have in readiness, against disinclination to leave your bed, the thought that"I am rising for the work of man." Must I grumble at setting out to do what I was born for, and for the sake of which I have been brought into the world? Is this the purpose of my creation, to lie here under the blankets and keep myself warm? "ah, but it is a great deal more pleasant!" was it for pleasure, then, that you were born, and not for work, not for effort? Look at the plants, the sparrows, ants, spiders, bees, all busy at their own tasks, each doing his part towards a coherent world-order; and will you refuse man's share of the work, instead of being prompt to carry out Nature's bidding?

  当清晨第一缕阳光将要照射进来的时候,打消掉一切不愿起床的念头,要想到:“我起来是要为人类工作的。“对于我们注定要完成的天赋使命,我们非得去抱怨一番吗?殊不知我们正是为这个天赋使命而来到世间。上帝创造了我,难道就是让我躺在毯子下面温暖自己的身体吗?“噢,但是那样做很舒适的啊!“难道我们生来便是为了舒适,而不是为了辛勤努力,为了工作劳动吗?看看那些植物,那些麻雀,那些蚂蚁,那些蜘蛛,那些蜜蜂,它们都在忙着自己的工作,为世界秩序的和谐尽着自己的那份力;难道你真的情愿放弃人类应该履行的职责,而不主动接受大自然给我们的赏赐吗?



2022年4月15日 14:07