雙語對照 ● The Strenuous Life　艱辛的人生

The Strenuous Life　艱辛的人生

◎ Theodore Roosevelt

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.

一種慵懶安逸的生活，一種僅僅是因為缺少追尋偉大事物的渴望或能力而引起的悠閑，這樣的個人對國家來說是毫無價值的。

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[59]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 free 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.

我們不會羨慕那些怯懦安逸的人。我們只會欣賞那種奮力向上的人；那種永不錯怪鄰里，樂于幫助朋友，而且很有男子氣概，能夠戰(zhàn)勝現(xiàn)實生活的殘酷競爭的人。失敗是痛苦的，可從來沒為成功放手一搏則更糟糕。在人的一生中，任何收獲都是通過努力得到的?，F(xiàn)在不用努力，只是意味著過去積攢的努力尚有余留。一個人不必工作，除非他或他的祖先曾經(jīng)努力工作過，并取得了豐厚的收獲。如果他能利用換取到的自由做些實際的工作，盡管那是一份不同的工作，不論是成為作家或?qū)④?，不論是在政治領(lǐng)域或是探險和冒險方面，都表明他值得擁有這份財富。

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 cumberer 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.

然而，如果在這段不用工作的時間里，他不知“未雨綢繆”，只知享樂（盡管他所從事的或許并非邪惡的享樂），那就表明了他只是地球表面上的一個贅疣。當他再次需要在伙伴面前維持自己昔日的地位時，他就注定會失敗。安逸的生活終究不會是令人滿意的生活。更重要的是，過著安逸生活的那些人，肯定無力擔當世間的重任。

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[60], 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.

這對國家和個人來說，都是一樣的。沒有歷史的國家是一個幸福的國度，這簡直就是最可恥的謊言。擁有光輝歷史的國家才是最幸福的國度。為了偉大事業(yè)而身陷險境，為了贏得光榮勝利而吃盡失敗之苦，那也勝過與沒有享受過多大快樂、也沒有遭受過多大苦的平庸之人為伍（因為他們生活在一個個既享受不到勝利，也遭遇不到失敗的灰暗世界里）。

美麗語錄

Miracles sometimes occur, but you have to work terribly for them.

奇跡有時候是會發(fā)生的，但是你得為之拼命努力。

超多雙語閱讀，盡在聽力課堂