President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates, 福斯特主席,哈佛公司和监察委员会的各位成员,各位老师、家长、全体毕业生们: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’ve endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! 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 Gryffindors' reunion. 首先请允许我说一声谢谢。
哈佛不仅给了我无上的荣誉,连日来为这个演讲经受的恐惧和紧张,更令我减肥成功。
这真是一个双赢的局面。
现在我要做的就是深呼吸几下,眯着眼睛看看前面的大红横幅,安慰自己正在世界上最大的格兰芬多。
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. 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. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard. 发表毕业演说是一个巨大的责任,至少在我回忆自己当年的毕业典礼前是这么认为的。
那天做演讲的是英国著名的哲学家Baroness Mary Warnock,对她演讲的回忆,对我写今天的演讲稿,产生了极大的帮助,因为我不记得她说过的任何一句话了。
这个发现让我释然,让我不再担心我可能会无意中影响你放弃在商业,法律或政治上的大好前途,转而醉心于成为一个快乐的魔法师(gay有快乐和同性恋的意思)。
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals - the first step to self-improvement.honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! 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 Gryffindors' reunion. 首先请允许我说一声谢谢。
哈佛不仅给了我无上的荣誉,连日来为这个演讲经受的恐惧和紧张,更令我减肥成功。
这真是一个双赢的局面。
现在我要做的就是深呼吸几下,眯着眼睛看看前面的大红横幅,安慰自己正在世界上最大的格兰芬多(沪江小编:以防有人没看过《哈利波特》……格兰芬多是小哈利所在的魔法学院的名字)聚会上。
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. 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. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard. 发表毕业演说是一个巨大的责任,至少在我回忆自己当年的毕业典礼前是这么认为的。
那天做演讲的是英国著名的哲学家Baroness Mary Warnock,对她演讲的回忆,对我写今天的演讲稿,产生了极大的帮助,因为我不记得她说过的任何一句话了。
这个发现让我释然,让我不再担心我可能会无意中影响你放弃在商业,法律或政治上的大好前途,转而醉心于成为一个快乐的魔法师(gay有快乐和同性恋的意思)。
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals - the first step to self-improvement.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 given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country's regime, his mother had been seized and executed. 只要我活着,我还会记得,在一个空荡荡的的走廊,突然从背后的门里,传来我从未听过的痛苦和恐惧的尖叫。
门打开了,调查员探出头请求我,为坐在她旁边的青年男子,调一杯热饮料。
她刚刚给他的消息是,为了报复他对国家政权的批评,他的母亲已经被捕并执行了枪决。
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20多岁的那段日子,每一天的工作,都在提醒我自己是多么幸运。
生活在一个民选政府的国家,依法申述与公开审理,是所有人的权利。
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. 每一天,我都能看到更多有关恶人的证据,他们为了获得或维持权力,对自己的同胞犯下暴行。
我开始做噩梦,真正意义上的噩梦,全都和我所见所闻有关。
And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before. 同时在这里我也了解到更多关于人类的善良,比我以前想象的要多很多。
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. 大赦动员成千上万没有因为个人信仰而受到折磨或监禁的人,去为那些遭受这种不幸的人奔走。