精美英文欣赏:罗琳哈佛大学毕业典礼演讲

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives?

但是，哈佛大学的2008届毕业生们，你们多少人有可能去触及他人的生命？

Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received,

你们的智慧，你们努力工作的能力，以及你们所受到的教育，

give you unique status, and unique responsibilities.

给予你们独特的地位和责任。

Even your nationality sets you apart.

甚至你们的国籍也让你们与众不同，

The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower.

你们绝大部份人属于这个世界上唯一的超级大国。

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.

你们表决的方式，你们生活的方式，你们抗议的方式，你们给政府带来的压力，具有超乎寻常的影响力。

That is your privilege, and your burden.

这是你们的特权，也是你们的责任。

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice;

如果你选择利用自己的地位和影响，去为那些没有发言权的人发出声音；

if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless;

如果你选择不仅与强者为伍，还会同情帮扶弱者；

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,

如果你会设身处地为不如你的人着想，那么你的存在，将不仅是你家人的骄傲，

but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better.

更是无数因为你的帮助而改变命运的成千上万人的骄傲。

We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already:

我们不需要改变世界的魔法，我们自己的内心就有这种力量：

we have the power to imagine better.

那就是我们一直在梦想，让这个世界变得更美好。

I am nearly finished.

我的演讲要接近尾声了。

I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21.

对你们，我有最后一个希望，也是我21岁时就有的。

The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life.

毕业那天坐在我身边的朋友现在是我终身的挚交，

They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters.

他们是我孩子的教父母，是在我遇到麻烦时愿意伸出援手，在我用他们的名字给哈利波特中的“食死徒”起名而不会起诉我的朋友。

At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection,

我们在毕业典礼时坐在了一起，

by our shared experience of a time that could never come again,

因为我们关系亲密，拥有共同的永远无法再来的经历，

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.

当然，也因为假想要是我们中的任何人竞选首相，那照片将是极为宝贵的关系证明。

So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships.

所以今天我可以给你们的，没有比拥有知己更好的祝福了。

And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine,

明天，我希望即使你们不记得我说的任何一个字，

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:

你们还能记得哲学家塞内加的一句至理明言。我当年没有顺着事业的阶梯向上攀爬，转而与他在古典文学的殿堂相遇，他的古老智慧给了我人生的启迪：

As is a tale, so is life:

生活就像故事一样：

not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

不在乎长短，而在于质量，这才是最重要的。

I wish you all very good lives.

我祝愿你们都有美好的生活。

Thank you very much.

非常感谢大家。