今天，我要和大家分享一篇著名作家J.K. Rowling在哈佛大学毕业典礼上发表的演讲，题目为《The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination》（失败的边缘好处与想象力的重要性）。虽然这篇演讲已经过去了16年，但它所包含的智慧和启示，以及对英语写作学习的帮助，至今仍然具有重要意义，堪比英语教科书。为了让大家更好地理解这篇演讲的深刻含义，我将从英语学习、人生哲理和英语金句三个维度来分析她的演讲如何帮助学生提高写作技巧和能力。
一、英语学习
1. 复杂句与语法
J.K. Rowling在演讲中运用了大量复杂句和高级语法结构，这对英语学习者来说是一个很好的学习材料。她的句子结构丰富，表达流畅，例如：
" Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight.
哈佛不仅给予了我非凡的荣誉，想到要发表这次毕业演讲，我经历了数周的恐惧和恶心，甚至让我体重减轻了。
在这句话中，她使用了倒装句和定语从句，展现了她娴熟的语言运用能力。学习这些复杂句，可以帮助我们提高英语写作水平，增强语感。
又比如：
"However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension."
“然而，我的父母，他们两人都来自贫困的背景，并且都没有上过大学，认为我过度活跃的想象力只是一个有趣的个人怪癖，永远不能支付房贷或保障养老金。”
这句话中包含了以下几个复杂句和高级语法结构：
非限制性定语从句的使用：
非限制性定语从句提供附加信息，用逗号隔开，关系代词通常用“who”，“whom”，“whose”等。熟练掌握定语从句可以使表达更丰富。
示例句子："The book, which I borrowed from the library, is very interesting."
并列结构的使用：
并列结构使句子更紧凑，表达更有条理。“both... and...”， “neither... nor...” 是常用的并列结构。
示例句子："Both the teacher and the students were excited about the project."
3. 同位语从句：
“that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.”
类型：同位语从句
功能：对“the view”进行具体说明和解释。
解释：这个从句详细描述了父母的具体看法，进一步解释了他们所持的观点。
4. 定语从句：
“that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension”
这个定语从句修饰“an amusing personal quirk”，进一步解释了父母认为这种特质不具备实际经济价值。
通过对这句话的复杂句和语法结构的分析，我们可以看到J.K. Rowling在演讲中是如何巧妙运用这些语法工具来增强表达效果的。学习并掌握这些语法结构，可以大大提高我们的英语写作和口语水平。
2. 英语文学工具
在演讲中，Rowling巧妙地运用了比喻、排比和对比等修辞手法，使她的演讲更加生动有力。
排比
Rowling在演讲中多次使用排比和重复，例如“if you choose to...”，增强了演讲的节奏感和力度。学生可以学习如何通过排比和重复来强调重要观点，使文章更加有节奏感和说服力。
例子：“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...
如果你选择利用自己的地位和影响力为那些没有发声权的人发声；如果你选择不仅认同强者，也认同弱者；如果你保有将自己想象成那些没有你们优势的人的能力......
分析：这段排比句式通过反复使用“if you choose”结构，强调了听众的选择和责任。通过这种重复，她突出了同情心和社会责任感的重要性，使听众更容易记住和理解她的观点。
例子：“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.
他们可以拒绝听到尖叫声，或拒绝窥视牢笼中的情景；他们可以关闭自己的心灵，对任何与自己无关的痛苦视而不见；他们可以选择无知。
分析：这段排比通过重复“they can refuse”结构，描绘了冷漠和无知的态度。通过这种重复和对比，她突显了选择冷漠的人与愿意共情的人的区别，强化了对冷漠态度的批判。
例子：“The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government..
你们的投票方式，你们的生活方式，你们的抗议方式，以及你们对政府施加的压力
分析：这段排比通过列举不同的行为方式（投票、生活、抗议、施压），展示了听众在社会中的多种影响力。通过这种多样性的强调，她提醒听众他们的每一种行为都具有重要意义和影响。
比喻
她的演讲中充满了生动的比喻和类比，例如将想象力比作魔法，将生活比作故事等。学生可以学习如何通过比喻和类比使文章更加生动形象，从而增强读者的理解和记忆。
例子：“Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral.”
分析：Rowling将道德力量比作虚构的魔法，指出它在道德上是中立的。这一比喻使听众更容易理解道德力量的双重性，强调了道德选择的重要性。
例子：“I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.”
分析：Rowling将她的朋友比作比红宝石更珍贵的宝物。这个比喻突显了她对朋友的珍视，强调了友谊的无价之宝。通过将朋友的价值与红宝石的高昂价格进行对比，她传达了友谊的珍贵和重要性，突显了人际关系在她生活中的核心地位。
反差
她在演讲中运用了大量的反差手法，例如将微小的参与与巨大的个人成长对比，将想象力与道德中立对比等。学生可以学习如何通过反差手法来突出主题，增强文章的表现力。
"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."
“在你们这个年纪，尽管我在大学时明显缺乏动力，经常在咖啡馆写故事，几乎不去上课，我却有通过考试的天赋，这多年来一直是衡量我和我的同龄人成功的标准。”
在这段话中，她通过对比“spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories”和“far too little time at lectures”，以及“lack of motivation”和“knack for passing examinations”，强调了她大学生活中的矛盾与反差。
“One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books.
我人生中最重要的一次成长经历之一发生在《哈利·波特》之前，尽管它对我后来在这些书中写的内容产生了很大影响
这句话运用了时间 （precede/subsequently) 和影响力上的反差, 巧妙地展示了她的个人经历对创作的影响。
My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.
我在那个过程中微不足道的参与，是我人生中最令人谦卑和鼓舞的经历之一
这句话运用了参与程度（small）和影响力（most inspiring）的反差，巧妙地展示了她在这一过程中所扮演的微小角色如何带来了巨大的个人启发。
“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.”
分析：通过对比权利（privilege）和负担（burden），她强调了哈佛毕业生们在全球范围内的影响力和责任。这种反差提醒听众他们的行为不仅影响自己，还对世界产生广泛影响。
二、人生哲理
1. 失败的好处
Rowling在演讲中详细阐述了失败的价值。她认为，失败是人生的一部分，也是我们成长的机会。她说：
"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."
这句话告诉我们，失败是不可避免的，但我们可以从中汲取教训，变得更强大。她通过自身的失败经历，鼓励我们勇敢面对生活中的挑战，不要因害怕失败而止步不前。
2. 想象力的重要性
Rowling还强调了想象力的重要性，她认为，想象力不仅仅是作家的工具，它也是我们同理心和道德的基础。她说：
"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 empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared."
通过这段话，她提醒我们要珍视自己的想象力，因为它不仅可以推动创新和发明，还可以帮助我们更好地理解和关心他人。
3. 金句
Rowling的演讲中充满了许多令人深思的金句，这些金句浓缩了她的人生智慧和哲理。例如：
"The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive."
“知道自己从挫折中变得更智慧和更坚强，这意味着你从此对自己的生存能力充满信心。”
Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates.
“才华和智慧从未能使任何人免于命运的变幻无常。
“We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”
我们不需要魔法来改变世界，我们已经在内心拥有了所有需要的力量：我们有想象更好世界的力量。
另外，Rowling在演讲中引用了普鲁塔克和塞内卡的名言，增加了演讲的深度和权威性。学生可以学习如何恰当地引用名人名言和经典作品来支持自己的观点，使文章更加有说服力和学术性。比如：
“As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”
人生如故事，不在于它有多长，而在于它有多好。
这些金句不仅仅是她个人经历的总结，也是对我们每一个人在面对困难时的鼓励。通过反复思考和内化这些金句，我们可以从中汲取力量，更加坚强地面对未来的挑战。
结论
J.K. Rowling的哈佛演讲稿不仅在英语学习方面提供了丰富的资源，还在人生哲理方面给予了深刻的启示。通过学习和思考这篇演讲稿，我们不仅可以提高我们的英语能力，还可以获得比大学学位更为宝贵的人生智慧。希望大家能够认真读完这篇演讲稿，从中获得启发，勇敢面对人生的挑战，追求真正属于自己的成功和幸福。
以下是演讲全文：
President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.
福斯特校长，哈佛公司和监事会的成员们，教职员工，骄傲的家长们，最重要的是，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 have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation!
首先，我想说的是“谢谢”。哈佛不仅给了我非凡的荣誉，而且在想到要发表这篇毕业演讲时所经历的数周恐惧和恶心让我减肥了。双赢的局面！
Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.
现在我所要做的就是深呼吸，眯着眼看红色横幅，并说服自己我正在参加世界上最大的格兰芬多校友会。
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation.
发表毕业演讲是一项巨大的责任；或者说，我曾经这么认为，直到我回想起自己的毕业典礼。
The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock.
那天的毕业演讲者是著名的英国哲学家玛丽·沃诺克女男爵。
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.
回想她的演讲对我写这篇演讲帮助很大，因为事实证明我完全不记得她说的任何一个字。
This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
这个解放性的发现让我能够毫无畏惧地继续，因为我不必担心会无意中影响你们放弃在商业、法律或政治方面的光明前途，而去追求成为一名快乐巫师的愉悦。
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock.
你们明白了吗？如果多年后你们唯一记得的是“快乐巫师”这个笑话，那我就胜过玛丽·沃诺克女男爵了。
Achievable goals: the first step to self-improvement.
可实现的目标：自我提升的第一步。
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today.
事实上，我绞尽脑汁思考今天应该对你们说些什么。
I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.
我问自己，在我的毕业典礼上我希望知道什么，以及在那天与今天之间的21年里我学到了哪些重要的教训。
I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure.
我想到了两个答案。在这个美好的日子里，我们齐聚一堂庆祝你们的学术成就，我决定和你们谈谈失败的好处。
And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.
当你们站在所谓“现实生活”的门槛上时，我想要颂扬想象力的重要性。
These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
这些选择可能看起来很唐吉诃德式或者矛盾，但请耐心听我说。
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.
回想我21岁毕业那年的情景，对于如今42岁的我来说，这是一种略微不舒服的经历。
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.
在我人生的半途，我在自己对自己的抱负和身边人对我的期望之间，艰难地寻找平衡。
I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels.
我坚信我唯一想做的事情就是写小说。
However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.
然而，我的父母都来自贫困家庭，且都没上过大学，他们认为我那过度活跃的想象力只是一个有趣的个人怪癖，永远无法支付房贷或保障养老金。
I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.
我知道现在看来，这种讽刺就像卡通里的铁砧一样砸下来。
So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature.
所以他们希望我选择一个职业学位；而我想学习英国文学。
A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages.
达成了一个事后看来没有人满意的妥协，我去学习现代语言。
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.
就在我父母的车刚拐过路的尽头，我就抛弃了德语，匆忙跑到古典文学的走廊上。
I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day.
我不记得告诉过我的父母我在学习古典文学；他们可能是在毕业那天第一次发现的。
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.
在地球上的所有学科中，我认为他们很难找到比希腊神话更无用的学科来获得进入高级行政洗手间的钥匙。
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view.
我想要澄清一下，我并不责怪父母的观点。
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.
责怪父母把你引向错误方向是有期限的；当你足够成熟可以自己掌握方向盘时，责任就在你自己。
What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty.
更重要的是，我不能批评父母希望我永远不会经历贫困。
They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience.
他们自己曾经贫穷过，我后来也经历了贫困，我完全同意他们的看法，这不是一种高尚的经历。
Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.
贫困带来恐惧、压力，有时还会有抑郁；它意味着无数的小屈辱和困苦。
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.
通过自己的努力摆脱贫困，这确实是值得自豪的事情，但贫困本身只有傻瓜才会浪漫化。
What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
在你们这个年龄，我最害怕的不是贫困，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.
在你们这个年龄，尽管在大学里我缺乏动力，花了太多时间在咖啡馆写故事，太少时间在课堂上，但我有通过考试的本领，多年来，这一直是我和我同龄人衡量成功的标准。
I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak.
我并不愚蠢到认为，因为你们年轻、有天赋、受过良好教育，你们就从未经历过艰难或心碎。
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.
天赋和智慧从未使任何人免于命运的变幻无常，我也不会认为这里的每一个人都享有过平稳的特权和满足的生活。
However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure.
然而，你们从哈佛毕业这一事实表明，你们并不太熟悉失败。
You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success.
你们可能既被对失败的恐惧所驱动，也被对成功的渴望所激励。
Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.
实际上，你们对失败的认知可能与普通人对成功的看法相差无几，因为你们已经飞得很高了。
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.
最终，我们都必须自己决定什么是失败，但如果你允许的话，世界很乐意为你提供一套标准。
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.
所以，我认为可以公平地说，仅在我毕业后的七年里，我就以一种史诗般的规模失败了。
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.
一段异常短暂的婚姻破裂了，我失业了，成为单亲妈妈，在现代英国可能达到的贫困程度上几乎达到了顶点，但没有流落街头。
The fears that 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.
我父母对我的恐惧和我对自己的恐惧都成了现实，按所有常规标准来看，我是我所知道的最大的失败者。
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun.
现在，我不会站在这里告诉你失败是有趣的。
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.
那段时间是我人生中的黑暗时期，我根本不知道后来媒体所描述的那种童话般的结局会出现。
I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
当时我不知道隧道有多长，长时间以来，隧道尽头的光明只是一个希望而非现实。
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.
那么，为什么我要谈论失败的好处呢？仅仅是因为失败意味着剥去无关紧要的东西。
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.
我不再对自己假装成另外一个人，开始把所有的精力投入到完成唯一对我重要的工作上。
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.
如果我真的在其他任何事情上成功了，我可能永远不会找到在我真正属于的领域取得成功的决心。
I was set free, because my greatest fear had 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.
我被解放了，因为我最大的恐惧已经实现，但我仍然活着，我还有一个我深爱的女儿，还有一台旧打字机和一个伟大的想法。
And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
于是，谷底成为了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.
你们可能不会像我那样大规模地失败，但生活中的一些失败是不可避免的。
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.
生活中不可能没有任何失败，除非你过得如此谨慎，以至于不如不活——在那种情况下，你实际上已经默认失败了。
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.
失败给了我通过考试从未获得过的内在安全感。
Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way.
失败教会了我一些只有通过失败才能学到的关于我自己的东西。
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.
我发现自己有坚强的意志力，比我想象的更有自律；我还发现我有一些朋友，他们的价值远超宝石的价格
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive.
你从挫折中变得更聪明、更坚强，这种知识意味着你从此能够确定自己的生存能力。
You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.
只有当你和你的关系都经历了逆境的考验，你才能真正了解自己，了解你们关系的力量。
Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.
这种知识是一个真正的礼物，尽管它是通过痛苦获得的，但它比我获得的任何资格都更有价值。
So given 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.
如果有时间转换器，我会告诉21岁的自己，个人的幸福在于明白生活不是一个获取或成就的清单。你的学历和简历并不是你的生活，尽管你会遇到很多我这个年纪及更年长的人将两者混淆。生活是艰难的、复杂的，并且超出了任何人的完全掌控，拥有谦逊的态度来认识到这一点将使你能够应对生活的起伏。
Now 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 personally 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.
你可能会认为，我选择了第二个主题——想象力的重要性，是因为它在重建我的生活中发挥了重要作用，但事实并不完全如此。虽然我个人会在最后一刻捍卫睡前故事的价值，但我学会了从更广泛的意义上去看待想象力。想象力不仅是人类独特的能力，可以设想不存在的事物，因此它是所有发明和创新的源泉。在其最具变革性和启示性的能力中，想象力让我们能够同情那些我们从未经历过的人类体验。
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 at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.
在我的人生中，有一段最具塑造力的经历发生在《哈利·波特》之前，尽管它对我后来在那些书中写的内容有很大影响。这一启示来自于我最早的一份日间工作。尽管我在午休时间溜出去写故事，但在20多岁时，我通过在伦敦大赦国际总部的非洲研究部门工作来支付房租。
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.
在我那间小小的办公室里，我阅读那些由冒着入狱风险的男女从极权政权下偷偷带出的潦草信件，这些信件是为了向外界告知他们所经历的事情。我看到了那些失踪者的照片，这些照片是由他们绝望的家人和朋友寄给大赦国际的。我阅读了酷刑受害者的证词，并看到了他们伤痕累累的照片。我打开了手写的目击者陈述，内容涉及草率的审判和处决、绑架和强奸。
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 speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.
我的许多同事都是前政治犯，他们因为敢于反对政府而被迫离开家园，或者逃亡到异国他乡。来我们办公室的访客中，有些是来提供信息的，有些则是试图了解他们离开后所牵挂的人发生了什么。
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 back 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.
我永远不会忘记那位非洲的酷刑受害者，一个和我当时年纪相仿的年轻人，他在祖国经历了无尽的折磨后精神失常。他在对着摄像机讲述自己所遭受的残酷暴行时，身体不停地颤抖。他比我高一英尺，却显得像孩子一样脆弱。事后，我被安排护送他回地铁站，这个被残忍摧毁了生活的人，极其礼貌地握住我的手，祝愿我未来幸福。
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 had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.
我一生都不会忘记，某天我在一条空荡的走廊上走着，突然从一扇关闭的门后传来一声痛苦和恐惧的尖叫，那声音我此后再也没有听到过。门打开了，研究员探出头来，告诉我去给和她坐在一起的年轻人冲一杯热饮。她刚刚不得不告诉他，由于他大胆反对自己国家的政权，他的母亲被捕并被处决了。
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.
在我二十多岁时，每周工作的每一天都让我意识到我是多么幸运，生活在一个拥有民选政府的国家，在这里，每个人都有获得法律代理和公开审判的权利。
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.
每天，我都看到更多关于人类为了获得或维持权力而对同类施加暴行的证据。我开始做噩梦，真实的噩梦，梦到我所看到、听到和读到的一些事情。
And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.
然而，我在大赦国际学到了更多关于人类善良的知识，比我之前所知道的还要多。
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.
大赦国际动员了成千上万从未因信仰被折磨或囚禁的人，代表那些受难者行动。人类共情的力量，带动集体行动，挽救生命，释放囚犯。那些生活安稳、个人安危有保障的普通人，成群结队地加入到拯救素未谋面的人们的行列中。我在这一过程中微不足道的参与，是我人生中最令人谦卑和鼓舞的经历之一。
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.
与地球上任何其他生物不同，人类能够在没有亲身经历的情况下学习和理解。他们可以设身处地，为他人着想。
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，就像我笔下的虚构魔法一样，是道德中立的。有人可能会利用这种能力进行操纵或控制，就像有人会用它来理解或同情他人一样。
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.
许多人则选择完全不去运用他们的想象力。他们选择安于自己的经验范围之内，从不费心去想象如果他们生而不同会是什么感觉。他们可以拒绝听到尖叫声，也不去窥视笼中的情景；他们可以对任何与自己无关的痛苦置之不理，闭上心门和思想；他们可以选择不去了解。
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 leads 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.
我可能会忍不住羡慕那些能够那样生活的人，除了我并不认为他们的噩梦会比我少。选择生活在狭小的空间里会导致一种心理上的广场恐惧症，而这会带来它独有的恐惧。我认为那些故意不愿想象的人会看到更多的怪物。他们往往更害怕。
What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
更重要的是，那些选择不去共情的人助长了真正的怪物。因为即使我们自己从未犯下明显的恶行，我们通过自己的冷漠与之狼狈为奸。
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.
在18岁那年，我冒险走进那条古典文学系的走廊，寻找一些当时还无法定义的东西。最终，我学到了许多，其中之一是希腊作家普鲁塔克写的这句话：“我们内心取得的成就将改变外部现实。”
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.
这是一个令人惊叹的声明，但每天我们的生活中都有无数次证明了它的真实性。它部分地表达了我们与外部世界不可逃避的联系，即仅仅通过我们的存在，我们就会影响到他人的生活。
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2008年哈佛大学的毕业生们，你们对他人生活的影响会有多大呢？你们的智慧、努力工作的能力、你们所获得和接受的教育，赋予了你们独特的地位和独特的责任。甚至你们的国籍也让你们与众不同。你们中的绝大多数人属于世界上唯一的超级大国。你们的投票方式、生活方式、抗议方式，以及你们对政府施加的压力，都对你们的国界之外产生影响。这是你们的特权，也是你们的负担。
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 change. 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.
如果你们选择利用自己的地位和影响力为那些没有发言权的人发声；如果你们选择不仅认同强者，也认同弱者；如果你们保有将自己想象成那些没有你们优势的人的能力，那么庆祝你们存在的将不仅仅是你们自豪的家人，还有成千上万、甚至数百万人，他们的现实因你们的努力而改变。我们不需要魔法来改变世界，因为我们已经在内心拥有了所有需要的力量：我们有想象更好世界的力量。
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, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took 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.
我快说完了。我对你们还有一个最后的期望，这是我在21岁时就已经拥有的。那些在毕业典礼上与我坐在一起的朋友，成为了我一生的挚友。他们是我孩子的教父母，是在我遇到困难时可以依靠的人，也是那些在我把他们的名字用作食死徒时仁慈地没有起诉我的人。在我们的毕业典礼上，我们被巨大的情感所牵系，被共同经历的那些再也无法重来的时光所联系，当然，还有我们都知道的某些照片证据，如果我们中的任何一个人竞选首相，这些照片会变得非常有价值。
So today, I 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，我最希望你们能拥有类似的友谊。明天，即使你们一个字都不记得我的话，我希望你们能记住塞内卡的话，他是我逃离职业阶梯、寻找古老智慧时，在古典文学系的走廊里遇到的另一位古罗马人：
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
I wish you all very good lives.
Thank-you very much.
“人生如故事，不在于它有多长，而在于它有多好。”
我祝愿你们都有非常美好的人生。
非常感谢。
作者*雅思8.5达人@Lili 老师
-阅读听力9写作8.5口语8
超过10年的教学经验，曾多次创下帮学生40课时内达到雅思8分和7.5分的高分记录，擅长帮学生搭建高分句型结构、满分素材，强雅思写作批改，直击失分点，英国名校圣安德鲁斯大学(英国卫报排名第二; 威廉王子母校) 英语教育MBA 双硕士科班出身，有着深厚的英语语言教学以及写作功底，TESOL 资格证书 TESl Canada 资格认证；
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