本.伯南克在普林斯顿大学2013年毕业典礼上的演讲
爱思英语编者按：本.伯南克是谁？他是美国经济学家，现任美国联邦储备局主席。下面是伯南克在普林斯顿大学2013年毕业典礼上的演讲。非常幽默，也给2013届普林斯顿毕业生10条人生建议，而这建议几乎都来自《阿甘正传》。
美联储主席伯克南普林斯顿大学毕业典礼演讲稿中英双语对照：
It's nice to be back at Princeton. I find it difficult tobelieve that it's been almost 11 years since I departed these halls forWashington. I wrote recently to inquire about the status of my leave from theuniversity, and the letter I got back began, "Regrettably, Princetonreceives many more qualified applicants for faculty positions than we canaccommodate."
重返普林斯顿感觉不错，很难相信，我离开校园赴华盛顿已经11年了。近期我向校方询问了我的教职问题，回信称：“很遗憾，普林斯顿收到很多更有才华的学者的求职信，而教职有限。”
I'll extend my best wishes to the seniors later, but first I wantto congratulate the parents and families here. As a parent myself, I know thatputting your kid through college these days is no walk in the park. Some yearsago I had a colleague who sent three kids through Princeton even though neitherhe nor his wife attended this university. He and his spouse were very proud ofthat accomplishment, as they should have been. But my colleague also used tosay that, from a financial perspective, the experience was like buying a newCadillac every year and then driving it off a cliff. I should say that healways added that he would do it all over again in a minute. So, well done,moms, dads, and families.
我将在稍后献上对毕业生的最美好祝愿，首先我要恭喜在座的家长们。作为父母，我知道这年头供孩子读完大学不容易，数年前，我的一个同事有3个孩子毕业于普林斯顿，尽管他们夫妻都不毕业于此，但我的同事常说，从财政角度讲，这如同每年买辆卡迪拉克，然后让车坠崖。他总会补充说，他会毫不犹豫的选择重新来过。所以，感谢你们的工作，母亲们，父亲们，及家人们。
This is indeed an impressive and appropriate setting for acommencement. I am sure that, from this lectern, any number of distinguishedspiritual leaders have ruminated on the lessons of the Ten Commandments. Idon't have that kind of confidence, and, anyway, coveting your neighbor's ox ordonkey is not the problem it used to be, so I thought I would use my fewminutes today to make Ten Suggestions, or maybe just Ten Observations, aboutthe world and your lives after Princeton. Please note, these points havenothing whatsoever to do with interest rates. My qualification for making suchsuggestions, or observations, besides having kindly been invited to speak todayby President Tilghman, is the same as the reason that your obnoxious brother orsister got to go to bed later--I am older than you. All of what follows hasbeen road-tested in real-life situations, but past performance is no guaranteeof future results.
这确实是做毕业典礼演讲的合适场合，我认为，在这一讲台上，每个精神导师都受到过“十诫”的教诲，我没有那样的信心，而且无论无何，觊觎邻居的驴牛已不是目前的问题，所以今年前几分钟我将提出“十个建议”，或称为对这个世界和你们毕业后的生活的十个观察。请注意，这十点与利率毫无关系。我之所以有资格提出这些建议和或观察，除了普林斯顿的善意邀请外，理由和你们讨厌的哥哥姐姐可以晚睡是一个道理：我比你们更老。以下内容均经受过生活的考验，但以往表现并不能确保未来的结果。
1. The poet Robert Burns once said something about the best-laidplans of mice and men ganging aft agley, whatever "agley" means. Amore contemporary philosopher, Forrest Gump, said something similar about lifeand boxes of chocolates and not knowing what you are going to get. They wereboth right. Life is amazingly unpredictable; any 22-year-old who thinks he orshe knows where they will be in 10 years, much less in 30, is simply lackingimagination. Look what happened to me: A dozen years ago I was minding my ownbusiness teaching Economics 101 in Alexander Hall and trying to think of goodexcuses for avoiding faculty meetings. Then I got a phone call... In case youare skeptical of Forrest Gump's insight, here's a concrete suggestion for eachof the graduating seniors. Take a few minutes the first chance you get and talkto an alum participating in his or her 25th, or 30th, or 40th reunion--youknow, somebody who was near the front of the P-rade. Ask them, back when theywere graduating 25, 30, or 40 years ago, where they expected to be today. Ifyou can get them to open up, they will tell you that today they are happy andsatisfied in various measures, or not, and their personal stories will befilled with highs and lows and in-betweens. But, I am willing to bet, thoselife stories will in almost all cases be quite different, in large and smallways, from what they expected when they started out. This is a good thing, nota bad thing; who wants to know the end of a story that's only in its earlychapters? Don't be afraid to let the drama play out.
1、阿甘曾讲到人生和巧克力的相似性，你不知道下一块巧克力的味道。人生确实难以预料，任何一个认为知道其10年后情况的毕业生，更不同说三十年了，我只能说他或她缺乏想象力。看看我吧，12年前我一心教经济学入门课程，想着编造什么理由不参加教学会议，结果我接到了那个电话。有过你有机会与毕业25年、30年或40年的校友交谈，并使他们敞开心扉，他们将告诉你，他们对生活中哪些事满意或不满意，他们经历过的高潮和低谷。但我敢打赌，他们的人生故事将与预期相异。这是好事而不是坏事，谁想在故事的开篇就知道结局呢？
2. Does the fact that our lives are so influenced by chance andseemingly small decisions and actions mean that there is no point to planning,to striving? Not at all. Whatever life may have in store for you, each of youhas a grand, lifelong project, and that is the development of yourself as a humanbeing. Your family and friends and your time at Princeton have given you a goodstart. What will you do with it? Will you keep learning and thinking hard andcritically about the most important questions? Will you become an emotionallystronger person, more generous, more loving, more ethical? Will you involveyourself actively and constructively in the world? Many things will happen inyour lives, pleasant and not so pleasant, but, paraphrasing a Woodrow WilsonSchool adage from the time I was here, "Wherever you go, there youare." If you are not happy with yourself, even the loftiest achievementswon't bring you much satisfaction.
2、是否人生偶然性之大的事实，意味着小的决定和行动无足轻重，不需要规划和奋斗呢？当然不是。无论未来人生如何，她将是一个宏大和漫长的项目，是你作为个人的发展过程。你的家人、朋友和你在普林斯顿的时光已经为你造就了良好的开端，未来你会如何？你会不断学习、竭力思索、对至关重要的问题持批判态度吗？你会成为情感上更强大、更大度、更有爱心、更道德的人吗？你会更积极的、更建设性的参与世事吗？你的人生会有很多故事，快乐的，及不太快乐的，如果你不为自己感到快乐，就连最伟大的成就业也不会让你感到满足。
3. The concept of success leads me to consider so-calledmeritocracies and their implications. We have been taught that meritocraticinstitutions and societies are fair. Putting aside the reality that no system,including our own, is really entirely meritocratic, meritocracies may be fairerand more efficient than some alternatives. But fair in an absolute sense? Thinkabout it. A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest intheir health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support,encouragement, and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and careeropportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate--theseare the folks who reap the largest rewards. The only way for even a putativemeritocracy to hope to pass ethical muster, to be considered fair, is if thosewho are the luckiest in all of those respects also have the greatestresponsibility to work hard, to contribute to the betterment of the world, andto share their luck with others. As the Gospel of Luke says (and I am sure myrabbi will forgive me for quoting the New Testament in a good cause):"From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; andfrom the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded"(Luke 12:48, New Revised Standard Version Bible). Kind of grading on the curve,you might say.
3、成功的概念促使我考虑所谓的精英主义及其含义。精英是在健康和基因上最幸运的人，他们在家庭支持、鼓励上，或在收入上也是最幸运的，他们在教育和职业机遇上最幸运，他们在很多方面都最幸运，一般人难以复制。一个精英体制是否公平，要看这些精英是否有义务努力工作、致力于建设更好的世界，并与他人分享幸运。
4. Who is worthy of admiration? The admonition from Luke--whichis shared by most ethical and philosophical traditions, by the way--helps withthis question as well. Those most worthy of admiration are those who have madethe best use of their advantages or, alternatively, coped most courageouslywith their adversities. I think most of us would agree that people who have,say, little formal schooling but labor honestly and diligently to help feed,clothe, and educate their families are deserving of greater respect--and help,if necessary--than many people who are superficially more successful. They'remore fun to have a beer with, too. That's all that I know about sociology.
4、谁值得尊重？是那些充分利用其优势，或勇敢面对逆境的人。我想我们会认同，那些虽然接受的正式教育不多，但诚实劳动、勤勉的为家人提供衣食和教育的人，相比更多表面上很成功的人，更值得尊重，和他们喝两杯是更有趣的事情。
5. Since I have covered what I know about sociology, I might as wellsay something about political science as well. In regard to politics, I havealways liked Lily Tomlin's line, in paraphrase: "I try to be cynical, butI just can't keep up." We all feel that way sometime. Actually, havingbeen in Washington now for almost 11 years, as I mentioned, I feel that wayquite a bit. Ultimately, though, cynicism is a poor substitute for criticalthought and constructive action. Sure, interests and money and ideology allmatter, as you learned in political science. But my experience is that most ofour politicians and policymakers are trying to do the right thing, according totheir own views and consciences, most of the time. If you think that the bad orindifferent results that too often come out of Washington are due to base motivesand bad intentions, you are giving politicians and policymakers way too muchcredit for being effective. Honest error in the face of complex and possiblyintractable problems is a far more important source of bad results than are badmotives. For these reasons, the greatest forces in Washington are ideas, andpeople prepared to act on those ideas. Public service isn't easy. But, in theend, if you are inclined in that direction, it is a worthy and challengingpursuit.
5、提到政治，愤世嫉俗是批判性思考和建设性行动的更糟糕的替代品。当然，利益、金钱和意识形态都有影响力，如你在政治课上所学。但我的感受是大部分政界人士都在寻求做正确的事情，大部分时候，这由他们的观点和意识决定。在复杂及难于处理的问题上所犯的诚实错误，更是糟糕结果的主要原因，而非不良动机。因此，华盛顿最有影响的力量是观念和想法，人们基于这些观念去行动。公共服务并不轻松，如果你选择了这一道路，那是值得的，并颇具挑战性。
6. Having taken a stab at sociology and political science, letme wrap up economics while I'm at it. Economics is a highly sophisticated fieldof thought that is superb at explaining to policymakers precisely why thechoices they made in the past were wrong. About the future, not so much.However, careful economic analysis does have one important benefit, which isthat it can help kill ideas that are completely logically inconsistent orwildly at variance with the data. This insight covers at least 90 percent ofproposed economic policies.
6、经济学是颇具诡辩性的思维领域，她在解释决策者以往所犯错误方面显得很崇高，但在预测未来时，则不仅如此。然而，谨慎的经济分析确有重要益处，她能去除那些不合逻辑或与数据不符的想法，这对90%的经济政策建议有影响。
7. I'm not going to tell you that money doesn't matter, becauseyou wouldn't believe me anyway. In fact, for too many people around the world,money is literally a life-or-death proposition. But if you are part of thelucky minority with the ability to choose, remember that money is a means, notan end. A career decision based only on money and not on love of the work or adesire to make a difference is a recipe for unhappiness.
7、我不会告诉你们金钱无用，反正你们也不会听的。事实上，对全球很多人来说，金钱能够决定生存还是死亡。但如果你属于那些幸运得有能力进行抉择的少数人，请记住，金钱只是途径，而非最终目标。职业选择基于收入、而非热爱，或做出贡献的热情，是日后苦恼的根源。
8. Nobody likes to fail but failure is an essential part of lifeand of learning. If your uniform isn't dirty, you haven't been in the game.
8、没有人希望失败，但失败是生活和学习的一部分。如果你衣衫整齐，你并没有进入比赛。
9. I spoke earlier about definitions of personal success in anunpredictable world. I hope that as you develop your own definition of success,you will be able to do so, if you wish, with a close companion on your journey.In making that choice, remember that physical beauty is evolution's way ofassuring us that the other person doesn't have too many intestinal parasites.Don't get me wrong, I am all for beauty, romance, and sexual attraction--wherewould Hollywood and Madison Avenue be without them? But while important, thoseare not the only things to look for in a partner. The two of you will have along trip together, I hope, and you will need each other's support and sympathymore times than you can count. Speaking as somebody who has been happilymarried for 35 years, I can't imagine any choice more consequential for alifelong journey than the choice of a traveling companion.
9、我希望你们能够发展自身对成功的定义，在这一过程中，你们能够选择一位亲密的伴侣。在做出选择时，要记住外表美只是人类演变的一种方式，它使我们确信对方没有肠道寄生虫。不要误解我，我也为美丽、浪漫和性所吸引，不然美国影视业和广告业怎么生存下去呢？但尽管重要，这些不是寻找人生伴侣时唯一需要考虑的事情。你们将共同走过人生旅程，需要对方的支持和关爱。作为已婚35年的人士，我想象不到比选择人生伴侣更重要的事情。
10. Call your mom and dad once in a while. A time will come whenyou will want your own grown-up, busy, hyper-successful children to call you.Also, remember who paid your tuition to Princeton.
10、时不时的给父母去个电话。早晚有一天，你希望自己长大成人的、工作繁忙的、超级成功的孩子给你来个电话，再者，请记着谁供养你上的大学。
Those are my suggestions. They're probably worth exactly whatyou paid for them. But they come from someone who shares your affection forthis great institution and who wishes you the best for the future.
Congratulations,graduates. Give 'em hell.
最后，毕业生们，给他们点颜色看看。