成功的经历英语演讲
演讲作为一种重要的交流方式在西方拥有长远的历史，可以追溯到亚里士多德时期。随着人类社会的发展，演讲一直作为一种重要的交流方式应用于各种场合之中，并且发挥着越来越重要的作用。以下是第一范文网小编精心为大家搜集整理的成功的经历英语演讲，希望对大家有所帮助!
成功的经历英语演讲篇1：著名导演斯皮尔伯格在哈佛20xx年毕业典礼上的演讲
Thank you, thank you, President Faust, and Paul Choi, thank you so much.
非常感谢Faust校长、Paul Choi校长，谢谢你们。
It's an honor and a thrill to address this group of distinguished alumni and supportive friends and kvelling parents. We've all gathered to share in the joy of this day, so please join me in congratulating Harvard's Class of 20xx.
非常荣幸能被邀请成为哈佛20xx年毕业典礼的演讲嘉宾，在众位优秀的毕业生、热情的朋友和诸位家长前做演讲。今天让我们一起，祝贺20xx届哈佛毕业生顺利毕业。
I can remember my own college graduation, which is easy, since it was only 14 years ago. How many of you took 37 years to graduate? Because, like most of you, I began college in my teens, but sophomore year, I was offered my dream job at Universal Studios, so I dropped out. I told my parents if my movie career didn't go well, I'd re-enroll.
我记得我自己的大学毕业典礼，这不难，因为就是20xx年以前的事情。你们当中的多少人花了37年才毕业?因为就像你们中的多数人，我在十几岁时进入大学，但是大二的时候我从环球影城获得了我的梦想工作，所以我休学了。我跟我的父母说，如果我的电影事业不顺，我会重新上学的。
It went all right.
我的电影事业发展得还行。
But eventually, I returned for one big reason. Most people go to college for an education, and some go for their parents, but I went for my kids. I'm the father of seven, and I kept insisting on the importance of going to college, but I hadn't walked the walk. So, in my fifties, I re-enrolled at Cal State - Long Beach, and I earned my degree.
但是我最后还是回到了学校，主要为了一个原因。很多人为了获得教育去上大学，有的人为了父母上大学，而我是为了我的孩子去上的。我是7个孩子的爸爸，我总是不断强调上大学的重要性，可我自己都没上过。所以在我50多岁的时候，我重新进入加州州立大学长滩分校，获得了学位。
I just have to add: It helped that they gave me course credit in paleontology for the work I did on Jurassic Park. That's three units for Jurassic Park, thank you.
我必须补充一点，我获得学位的一个原因是学校为我在《侏罗纪公园》里所做的，给我了考古学学分。《侏罗纪公园》换得了3个学分，非常感谢。
Well, I left college because I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and some of you know, too - but some of you don't. Or maybe you thought you knew but are now questioning that choice. Maybe you're sitting there trying to figure out how to tell your parents that you want to be a doctor and not a comedy writer.
我离开大学是因为我很清楚地知道我想要做什么。你们中的一些人也知道，但是有些人还没弄明白。或者你以为你知道，但是现在开始质疑这个决定。或者你坐在这里，试着想要怎么告诉你的父母，你想要成为一名医生，而不是喜剧编剧。
Well, what you choose to do next is what we call in the movies the 'character-defining moment.' Now, these are moments you're very familiar with, like in the last Star Wars: The Force Awakens, when Rey realizes the force is with her. Or Indiana Jones choosing mission over fear by jumping over a pile of snakes.
你接下来要做的事情，在我们这行叫做“定义角色的时刻”。这些是你非常熟悉的场景，例如在最近的一部《星球大战：原力觉醒》里女主角Rey发现自己拥有原力的一刻。或者在《夺宝奇兵》里印第安纳·琼斯选择战胜恐惧跳过蛇堆，继续任务的时候。
Now in a two-hour movie, you get a handful of character-defining moments, but in real life, you face them every day. Life is one strong, long string of character-defining moments. And I was lucky that at 18 I knew what I exactly wanted to do. But I didn't know who I was. How could I? And how could any of us? Because for the first 25 years of our lives, we are trained to listen to voices that are not our own. Parents and professors fill our heads with wisdom and information, and then employers and mentors take their place and explain how this world really works.
一部两小时的电影里有几个定义角色的时刻，但是在真实的生活中，你每天都在面对这样的时刻。生活就是一长串强大的定义角色的时刻。我非常幸运在18岁时就知道我想要做什么。但是我并不知道我是谁。我怎么可能知道呢?我们中任何人都不知道。因为在生命的头一个20xx年里，我们被训练去倾听除自己以外的人的声音。父母和教授们把智慧和信息塞进我们的脑袋，然后换上雇主和导师来向我们解释这个世界到底是怎么一回事。
And usually these voices of authority make sense, but sometimes, doubt starts to creep into our heads and into our hearts. And even when we think, 'that's not quite how I see the world,' it's kind of easier to just to nod in agreement and go along, and for a while, I let that going along define my character. Because I was repressing my own point of view, because like in that Nilsson song, 'Everybody was talkin' at me, so I couldn't hear the echoes of my mind.'
通常这些权威人物的声音是有道理的，但是有些时候，质疑会爬进你的脑子和心里。就算我们觉得“这好像不太是我看世界的方式”，点头表示赞同也是更容易做的事情，有段时间我就让“附和”定义了我。因为我压抑了自己的想法，因为就像尼尔森歌里唱的一样：“每个人都在对我说话，所以我听不见我思考的回声。”
And at first, the internal voice I needed to listen to was hardly audible, and it was hardly noticeable - kind of like me in high school. But then I started paying more attention, and my intuition kicked in.
一开始，我需要倾听的内心的声音几乎一声不响，也难以察觉——就像高中时的我。但是之后我开始更加注意这些声音，然后我的直觉开始工作。
And I want to be clear that your intuition is different from your conscience. They work in tandem, but here's the distinction: Your conscience shouts, 'here's what you should do,' while your intuition whispers, 'here's what you could do.' Listen to that voice that tells you what you could do. Nothing will define your character more than that.
我想告诉你，你的直觉和你的良心是两个不同的事物。它们会协力工作，但这是它们的不同：你的良心会呼喊“你应当去做这个”，而你的直觉只会低语“你是可以这样做的”。倾听那个告诉你你能怎么去做的声音。没有什么比这更能定义你的角色的了。
Because once I turned to my intuition, and I tuned into it, certain projects began to pull me into them, and others, I turned away from.
因为我一旦会听从我的直觉，我就会全力投入到一些项目中去，而放弃其它。
And up until the 1980s, my movies were mostly, I guess what you could call 'escapist.' And I don't dismiss any of these movies - not even 1941. Not even that one. And many of these early films reflected the values that I cared deeply about, and I still do. But I was in a celluloid bubble, because I'd cut my education short, my worldview was limited to what I could dream up in my head, not what the world could teach me.
直到19世纪80年代时，我电影中的大多数，我猜你们可以称之为“逃避现实”。我不会拒绝任何这些电影的邀约，不只是《1941》。不止那一部，很多早期电影反映了我当时内心的价值观，如今我仍然在这样做。但我当时处于自己的电影泡沫中，因为我的辍学，我受限的世界观部分来自于我的想象，而不是外界教会我的。
But then I directed The Color Purple. And this one film opened my eyes to experiences that I never could have imagined, and yet were all too real. This story was filled with deep pain and deeper truths, like when Shug Avery says, 'Everything wants to be loved.' My gut, which was my intuition, told me that more people needed to meet these characters and experience these truths. And while making that film, I realized that a movie could also be a mission.
当我执导《紫色》的时候，这部电影让我体验了我从未想象过，却如此真实的一些感受。这个故事充满了深深的痛苦和更深一部的真理，就像Shug Avery说“任何一个东西都想被爱着。”我的直觉告诉我，更多的人需要来认识这样的角色，来体验这样的真理。在导演这部电影时，我突然发现一部电影也可以是一个使命。
I hope all of you find that sense of mission. Don't turn away from what's painful. Examine it. Challenge it.
我希望你们所有人都能找到这样的使命感。不要避让让你痛苦的事情。研究它、挑战它。
My job is to create a world that lasts two hours. Your job is to create a world that lasts forever. You are the future innovators, motivators, leaders and caretakers.
我的工作是要构筑一个维持两小时的世界。你的工作是要建一个会一直持续的世界。你们是未来的创新者、激励者、领导者和守护者。
And the way you create a better future is by studying the past. Jurassic Park writer Michael Crichton, who graduated from both this college and this medical school, liked to quote a favorite professor of his who said that if you didn't know history, you didn't know anything. You were a leaf that didn't know it was part of a tree. So history majors: Good choice, you're in great shape...Not in the job market, but culturally.
你们要研究过去，才能建设一个更好的未来。《侏罗纪公园》的编剧Michael Crichton是从这所大学的医学院毕业的。他喜欢引用他最喜欢的一位教授的话，他说如果你不懂得历史，那么你一无所知。你是一片树叶，不知道自己只是树的一部分。所以主修历史的同学们，很棒的选择，你的前景不错…不是说在招聘市场上啊，从文化上来说的话。
The rest of us have to make a little effort. Social media that we're inundated and swarmed with is about the here and now. But I've been fighting and fighting inside my own family to get all my kids to look behind them, to look at what already has happened. Because to understand who they are is to understand who we were, and who their grandparents were, and then, what this country was like when they emigrated here. We are a nation of immigrants - at least for now.
我们剩下的其它人就需要努点力了。淹没和吞噬我们的社交媒体只关乎当下。但是我自己和家人都不断尝试，让我所有的孩子们能透过这些，去看过去发生过的事情。因为要知道他们是谁，就要去理解他们曾经是谁，他们的祖父母是谁，以及当他们移民到这个国家来的时候，这个国家到底是什么样。我们是一个移民国家——至少现在还是。
So, to me, this means we all have to tell our own stories. We have so many stories to tell. Talk to your parents and your grandparents, if you can, and ask them about their stories. And I promise you, like I have promised my kids, you will not be bored.
所以对我来说，这意味着我们每个人都有自己的故事可讲，有很多故事可讲。如果可以的话，和你的父母、祖父母聊聊天，听听他们的故事。我保证，就像我向我的孩子保证的一样，一定收获颇丰，绝对不会无聊。
And that's why I so often make movies based on real-life events. I look to history not to be didactic, 'cause that's just a bonus, but I look because the past is filled with the greatest stories that have ever been told. Heroes and villains are not literary constructs, but they're at the heart of all history.
这就是为什么我经常就会导演由真实事件改编的电影。我回顾历史并不是为了说教，这是额外的奖励，我回顾历史因为过去充满了那些从来没被讲述出来的伟大故事。英雄和坏人不是文学塑造出来的，而是在一切历史的最中心。
And again, this is why it's so important to listen to your internal whisper. It's the same one that compelled Abraham Lincoln and Oskar Schindler to make the correct moral choices. In your defining moments, do not let your morals be swayed by convenience or expediency. Sticking to your character requires a lot of courage. And to be courageous, you're going to need a lot of support.
所以，这就是为什么倾听你内心的低语非常重要。这与驱使亚伯拉罕·林肯和奥斯卡·辛德勒去做正确的道德选择的东西是一样的。在属于你的“定义角色的时刻”里，不要让你的道德被便利或者私利左右。忠于你的角色需要很多的勇气，变得勇敢，你又需要很多的支持。
And if you're lucky, you have parents like mine. I consider my mom my lucky charm. And when I was 12 years old, my father handed me a movie camera, the tool that allowed me to make sense of this world. And I am so grateful to him for that. And I am grateful that he's here at Harvard, sitting right down there.
如果你足够幸运，你会有像我父母一样开明的父母。我把母亲看做我的幸运女神。12岁时，我父亲给了我一个电影摄像机，也是因为有了这个，我可以更好地去感知这个世界，我很感谢我的父亲。现在我很感激父亲也来到哈佛，坐在这里。
My dad is 99 years old, which means he's only one year younger than Widener Library. But unlike Widener, he's had zero cosmetic work. And dad, there's a lady behind you, also 99, and I'll introduce you after this is over, okay?
我父亲今年99岁了，只比怀德纳图书馆(哈佛最大的图书馆今年120xx年)年轻1岁，但不像这个图书馆可以翻新，父亲已垂垂老矣。另外，父亲，在你身后有一位99岁的女士，这个之后我会介绍你给她，好吗?
But look, if your family's not always available, there's backup. Near the end of It's a Wonderful Life - you remember that movie, It's a Wonderful Life? Clarence the Angel inscribes a book with this: "No man is a failure who has friends." And I hope you hang on to the friendships you've made here at Harvard. And among your friends, I hope you find someone you want to share your life with. I imagine some of you in this yard may be a tad cynical, but I want to be unapologetically sentimental. I spoke about the importance of intuition and how there's no greater voice to follow. That is, until you meet the love of your life. And this is what happened when I met and married Kate, and that became the greatest character-defining moment of my life.
但是，如果你的家人并不总是支持你，还有B计划。在《生活多美好》剧终前，天使Clarence在一本书上题写了这句话：“有朋友的人，不会是生活的失败者。”我希望你们会珍惜在哈佛建立的这些友谊。而在你的朋友之中，我希望你们找个能分享你生活的另一半。我猜想你们中的一些人对此会会抱有怀疑，但是我表现出的感性毫无歉意。我说了直觉的重要性，以及除了直觉没有更值得追随的声音。这是指在你遇到你一生最爱之前。我与妻子相恋并结婚的经历就是如此，这成为了我生活中最重要的“定义角色的时刻”。
Love, support, courage, intuition. All of these things are in your hero's quiver, but still, a hero needs one more thing: A hero needs a villain to vanquish. And you're all in luck. This world is full of monsters. And there's racism, homophobia, ethnic hatred, class hatred, there's political hatred, and there's religious hatred.
爱、支持、勇气、直觉。所有的这些都在你英雄的箭袋之中，但是英雄还需要一件东西——英雄需要一个去征服的坏人。而你们所有人都很走运，这个世界充满了怪物。有种族歧视、恐同、种族仇恨、阶级仇恨，还有政治仇恨和宗教仇恨。
As a kid, I was bullied - for being Jewish. This was upsetting, but compared to what my parents and grandparents had faced, it felt tame. Because we truly believed that anti-Semitism was fading. And we were wrong. Over the last two years, nearly 20,000 Jews have left Europe to find higher ground. And earlier this year, I was at the Israeli embassy when President Obama stated the sad truth. He said: 'We must confront the reality that around the world, anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it.'
还是孩子的时候，我因为是犹太人而被起伏。这让人丧气，但是与我父母和祖父母曾经面对的事情比起来，这很平淡。我们都真正相信反犹太运动正在衰退，但我们错了。在过去两年间，有大约两万犹太人离开欧洲寻找生存之地。今年早些时候，我在以色列大使馆听奥巴马总统陈述了一个悲惨的现实。他说：“反犹太运动的增势发生在全球各地，这是我们需要面对的事实。我们不能否认它。”
My own desire to confront that reality compelled me to start, in 1994, the Shoah Foundation. And since then, we've spoken to over 53,000 Holocaust survivors and witnesses in 63 countries and taken all their video testimonies. And we're now gathering testimonies from genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, Armenia and Nanking. Because we must never forget that the inconceivable doesn't happen - it happens frequently. Atrocities are happening right now. And so we wonder not just, 'When will this hatred end?' but, 'How did it begin?'
我正视这一事实的强烈愿望驱使我从1994年成立了大屠杀真相基金会，从那以后我们采访了63个国家5.3万名大屠杀的幸存者或目击者，录制了他们所有人的证词。现在我们还在收集卢旺达、柬埔寨、亚美尼亚以及南京大屠杀的证词。因为我们永远都不要忘记那些难以想象的罪恶会发生，并且时有发生。暴行也仍在发生。所以我们不能只去想“仇恨什么时候才会停止?”而是“它是怎么开始的?”。
Now, I don't have to tell a crowd of Red Sox fans that we are wired for tribalism. But beyond rooting for the home team, tribalism has a much darker side. Instinctively and maybe even genetically, we pide the world into 'us' and 'them.' So the burning question must be: How do all of us together find the 'we?' How do we do that? There's still so much work to be done, and sometimes I feel the work hasn't even begun. And it's not just anti-Semitism that's surging - Islamophobia's on the rise, too. Because there's no difference between anyone who is discriminated against, whether it's the Muslims, or the Jews, or minorities on the border states, or the LGBT community - it is all big one hate.
我想我并不需要向一群红袜队的球迷解释我们为什么会拥抱部落文化。但是在为主队加油之外，部落文化有它更阴暗的一面。本能地或者由基因决定，我们把世界分成“我们”和“他们”。所以棘手的问题是，我们所有人能共同发现“我们”?我们应当如何去做?仍旧有许多的工作要做，有的时候我甚至觉得这一事业还没开始。这不仅仅是指反犹太运动抬头，伊斯兰恐惧症也在抬头。因为那些被歧视的人群之间是没有区别的，不管他们是穆斯林、犹太人、边境州里的弱势人群，或者是同性恋、双性恋及变性者社群——他们遭受的都是同样的仇恨。
And to me, and, I think, to all of you, the only answer to more hate is more humanity. We gotta repair - we have to replace fear with curiosity. 'Us' and 'them' - we'll find the 'we' by connecting with each other. And by believing that we're members of the same tribe. And by feeling empathy for every soul - even Yalies.
对我来说，我想对你们也一样，只能用更多的人性来对抗更多的仇恨。我们需要修护，用好奇来替代恐惧。不排斥异己，我们通过建立人与人的联系来找到共同的“我们”。我们要相信我们是同一个部落的成员。我们对所有的人都要有同情心——哪怕对“友校”耶鲁人也要如此。
My son graduated from Yale, thank you…
我的儿子就是从耶鲁毕业的，谢谢…
But make sure this empathy isn't just something that you feel. Make it something you act upon. That means vote. Peaceably protest. Speak up for those who can't and speak up for those who may be shouting but aren't being hard. Let your conscience shout as loud as it wants if you're using it in the service of others.
但是你要确认你的同理心不只是你的感受。让它是你采取行动的诱因。这是指参加投票、和平地抗议、为那些不能为自己发声或者已经声嘶力竭却无法让人注意的人发声。让你的良心大声疾呼吧，如果是为了服务于他们。
And as an example of action in service of others, you need to look no further than this Hollywood-worthy backdrop of Memorial Church. Its south wall bears the names of Harvard alumni - like President Faust has already mentioned - students and faculty members, who gave their lives in World War II. All told, 697 souls, who once tread the ground where stand now, were lost. And at a service in this church in late 1945, Harvard President James Conant - which President Faust also mentioned - honored the brave and called upon the community to 'reflect the radiance of their deeds.'
作为为他人服务的行动榜样，你只需要看看这像好莱坞背景一般的纪念教堂。它的南墙上是哈佛校友们的名字，福斯特校长已经说过，他们是在第二次世界大战中献身的哈佛学生和教师们。697个人，他们曾经在你站着的地方逗留过，697条生命逝去。在1945年纪念教堂举行的追思会上，柯南特校长纪念这些勇敢的人们，并号召哈佛人身上要“反射出他们壮举的荣光”。
Seventy years later, this message still holds true. Because their sacrifice is not a debt that can be repaid in a single generation. It must be repaid with every generation. Just as we must never forget the atrocities, we must never forget those who fought for freedom. So as you leave this college and head out into the world, continue please to 'reflect the radiance of their deeds,' or as Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan would say, "Earn this."
70年后，这句话仍然适用。因为他们所做出的牺牲不是一代人就能报答的。每一代人都应该报答他们。就像我们永远不该忘记那些恶行，我们永远也不应当忘记那些为自由而战的人。所以当你离开这所学校进入世界，请继续“反射出他们壮举的荣光”，或者像《拯救大兵瑞恩》里米勒上尉说的“别辜负大家”。
And please stay connected. Please never lose eye contact. This may not be a lesson you want to hear from a person who creates media, but we are spending more time looking down at our devices than we are looking in each other's eyes. So, forgive me, but let's start right now. Everyone here, please find someone's eyes to look into. Students, and alumni and you too, President Faust, all of you, turn to someone you don't know or don't know very well. They may be standing behind you, or a couple of rows ahead. Just let your eyes meet. That's it. That emotion you're feeling is our shared humanity mixed in with a little social discomfort.
此外，请保持彼此的联系，别避而不见。这可能不是你想从一个创作媒体的人这里听的一课，但是我们花越来越多的时间低头看手机，而不是注视别人的眼睛。所以请原谅我，现在所有人，请找一双眼睛深刻凝视。学生们、校友们都是，福斯特校长、你们所有人，转向一位你不认识或者不熟悉的人，对视，仅此而已。你所感受到的使我们共同拥有的人性，混进去了一丝社交不适感。
But, if you remember nothing else from today, I hope you remember this moment of human connection. And I hope you all had a lot of that over the past four years. Because today you start down the path of becoming the generation on which the next generation stands. And I've imagined many possible futures in my films, but you will determine the actual future. And I hope that it's filled with justice and peace.
如果你今天别的什么都没记住，我希望你能记住这一刻人与人之间的联系。我希望过去四年中，你们经历了很多的这样的时刻。因为从今天开始，你们会像前辈一样，托举起下一辈人。我在我的电影里幻想过很多种不同的未来，但是你们会决定未来的实际样子。我希望，这样的未来充满公正与和平。
And finally, I wish you all a true, Hollywood-style happy ending. I hope you outrun the T. rex, catch the criminal and for your parents' sake, maybe every now and then, just like E.T.: Go home. Thank you.
最后，我祝愿大家好莱坞式的大团圆结局成真。祝你们能跑过暴龙、抓住罪犯，为了你们的父母，也别忘了像E.T.那样常回家看看。谢谢。
成功的经历英语演讲篇2：比尔盖茨在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲
President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, parents, and especially, the graduates: I've been waiting more than 30 years to say this: “Dad, I always told you I’d come back and get my degree.”
尊敬的博克校长，前校长鲁登斯坦，即将上任的佛斯特校长，哈佛集团和监察理事会的各位成员。各位老师，各位家长，各位同学：有句话我憋了30年，今天终于能一吐为快了：““爸 我没骗你吧，文凭到手了!”
I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I’ll be changing my job next year … and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my résumé.
我由衷地感谢哈佛这个时候给我这个荣誉。明年我要换工作(退休)。 我终于能在简历里注明自己有大学学历了。
I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, I’m just happy that the Crimson has called me “Harvard’s most successful dropout.” I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class … I did the best of everyone who failed.
我要恭喜今年的毕业生们，因为你们毕业比我顺利多了。其实我倒是很乐意克莱姆森把我唤作“哈佛大学最成功的辍学生”。这大概是我脱颖而出的法宝……我是辍学生中的领头羊。
But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school. I’m a bad influence. That’s why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today.
我还要检讨一下史蒂夫-鲍尔默也是受我蛊惑从商学院退学。我劣迹斑斑。这就是为什么我会受邀参加毕业演讲。如果是开学典礼，恐怕今天的人会少很多。
Harvard was just a phenomenal experience for me. Academic life was fascinating. I used to sit in on lots of classes I hadn’t even signed up for. And dorm life was terrific. I lived up at Radcliffe, in Currier House. There were always lots of people in my dorm room late at night discussing things, because everyone knew I didn’t worry about getting up in the morning. That’s how I came to be the leader of the antisocial group. We clung to each other as a way of validating our rejection of all those social people.
哈佛是我生命里的一段非凡经历。校园生活格外充实，我旁听过很多没有选过的课程。住宿的日子也很爽我当时住在拉德克利夫的柯里尔宿舍，总是很多人在我的寝室讨论到深夜。 大家知道我属于夜行动物。就这样，我成为了这堆人的头目。我们粘在一起，摆出拒绝社交的姿态。
Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up there, and most of the guys were science-math types. That combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean. This is where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn’t guarantee success.
拉德克利夫是个好地方。那里的女生比男生多，男生们大多都是科学怪人。所以我的机会来了，你懂的。可同时我也明白了一个道理——机会大也不能保证成功。
One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975, When I made a call from Currier House to a company in Albuquerque that had begun making the world’s first personal computers. I offered to sell them software.
1975年1月在哈佛打出的一通电话让我毕生难忘。我打给位于阿尔伯克基的一个公司，那家公司当时着手制造世界上第一台个人电脑。我说我想出售软件给他们。
I worried that they would realize I was just a student in a dorm and hang up on me. Instead they said: “We’re not quite ready, come see us in a month,” which was a good thing, because we hadn’t written the software yet. From that moment, I worked day and night on this little extra credit project that marked the end of my college education and the beginning of a remarkable journey with Microsoft.
我担心他们会因为我学生身份而挂掉电话。但他们只是说：“现在还没有准备好 请一个月后再联系我们。”我长舒一口气，压根我们就没开工。从那时起 我不分昼夜地赶工 它是我大学生活结束的标志，也是微软伟大旅程的开始。
What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of so much energy and intelligence. It could be exhilarating, intimidating, sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging. It was an amazing privilege and though I left early, I was transformed by my years at Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on.
哈佛的独特氛围让我充满精力和智慧。这里的日子可能振奋快乐、也可能令人退缩沮丧，但永远充满了挑战，神奇的体验!虽然我提前离开了这里，但是这段经历对我影响重大。
But taking a serious look back … I do have one big regret.
不过说心里话……我确实有一点遗憾。
I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world - the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair.
我离开哈佛时，根本没有意识到这个世界是多么地不平等。健康、财富、机遇差异悬殊，数以百万计的人生活在绝望之中。
I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences.
我在哈佛触摸着经济政治中的新思想，探索科学技术的未知前沿。
But humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity – reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.
但是，人类的进步不在于这些新发现，而在于如何运用这些发现减少社会不公。不管是通过民主政策、健全的公共教育、高质量的医疗保健还是广泛的商机，消除不平等始终是人类最大的目标。
I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries. It took me decades to find out.
离开校园的时候，根本不知道在美国上百万年轻人没有接受教育的机会。也对发展中国家被贫困和病痛折磨的人们一无所知。我花了几十年才明白这些事情。
You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know more about the world’s inequities than the classes that came before. In your years here, I hope you’ve had a chance to think about how – in this age of accelerating technology – we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them.
如今，在座的各位应该比我更了解世界上的这些不平等现象。在你们的求学之路上我希望你们已经思考过这个问题——如何在这个高速发展的时代解决不平等现象。
Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it?
试想一下如果你每周捐出几个小时，几块钱，来参与一项能够拯救生命和提高生活品质的项目，你会如何选择?
For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have.
我和妻子梅琳达就面临着这样一个问题：怎样才能充分利用我们拥有的资源。
During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who were dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country. Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever. One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a million kids each year- none of them in the United States.
举棋不定时我们读到一篇文章，文章里说在贫困的国家里，每年有数百万，儿童死于于美国早已战胜的疾病——麻疹、疟疾、肺炎、乙肝、黄热病，还有一种从未听说的轮状病毒每年会夺走五十万儿童的生命，而在美国没有一例死亡病例。
We were shocked. We had just assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just weren’t being delivered.
当时我们就震惊了。我以为全世界会不遗余力地拯救这些在死亡线上挣扎的儿童们，然而这些不值钱的救命药却没有送到他们手中。
If you believe that every life has equal value, it’s revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves: “This can’t be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving.”
如果你坚信人生而平等，把生命分等级的做法简直令人发指。我们对自己说：“这绝不可能。但万一这是真的，那么这将成为我们慈善事业的首要任务。
So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked: “How could the world let these children die?”
于是我们开始行动了 我相信这也会是你们的选择。我们疑惑：“这个世界怎么可以眼睁睁看着这些孩子死去?”
The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system. But you and I have both. We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism.
答案简单却残酷。市场经济中，拯救儿童没有利润，政府也不会给予补贴。父母无财无权 孩子们就死了。我们不一样，我们可以让市场更好地为穷人服务，如果我们可以改进现有资本主义制度。
If we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities. We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes.
改善市场环境，让更多的人赚到钱、维持生计，缓解苦难。给世界各地的政府施压 让他们把纳税人的钱花到最值得的地方。采取一些既满足满足穷人的需求，又能带来商业利润并为政治家带来选票的措施。
If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world.This task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world.
采取一些既满足满足穷人的需求，又能带来商业利润并为政治家带来选票的措施，我们就摸索到了减少世界不平等的可持续发展道路。然而这项任务并没有终点，我们也许无法彻底解决。但只要不懈努力，就可以改变世界。
I am optimistic that we can do this, but I talk to skeptics who claim there is no hope. They say: “Inequity has been with us since the beginning, and will be with us till the end – because people just … don’t … care.” I completely disagree.
我始终保持乐观。但也听到过消极的言论。他们认为：“这种不平等现象会伴随我们一生，因为人们漠视这一切。”但我不苟同。
I believe we have more caring than we know what to do with. All of us here in this Yard, at one time or another, have seen human tragedies that broke our hearts, and yet we did nothing, not because we didn’t care, but because we didn’t know what to do. If we had known how to help, we would have acted.
虽然我们不知道该如何帮助他们，但我们绝对有这份心。我们都有过这样的经历，看到令人心碎的悲剧，却没有伸出援手。不是因为冷漠 而是我们不知道该怎么做。如果我们知道如何去帮，就一定会采取行动。
The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity. To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps.
阻碍援助步伐的并非冷漠，而是世界太复杂。要把爱心转变为行动，我们首先要发掘问题，然后寻找解决方案，并且监测效果。然而世界的复杂性阻碍着这些步骤的实施。
Even with the advent of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is still a complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problems. When an airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference. They promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar crashes in the future.
即使有了互联网和24小时不间断的新闻，人们仍然很难看到真正的问题。一架飞机发生坠毁事故，官员们会立刻召开新闻发布会，承诺调查起因，以避免今后发生类似的事故。
But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say: “Of all the people in the world who died today from preventable causes, one half of one percent of them were on this plane. We’re determined to do everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of the one half of one percent.” The bigger problem is not the plane crash, but the millions of preventable deaths.
但如果那些官员敢讲真话，他们会说：“全世界每天会有好多人含恨而终，这起空难只是冰山一角。我们会不惜一切代价解决削平这一角冰山，此外的问题我们无力解决。” 可是与空难相比，那些夺走数百万生命的问题则更为严重。
We don’t read much about these deaths. The media covers what’s new – and millions of people dying is nothing new. So it stays in the background, where it’s easier to ignore. But even when we do see it or read about it, it’s difficult to keep our eyes on the problem. It’s hard to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we don’t know how to help. And so we look away.
事实上那些人的死轻如鸿毛，司空见惯，连媒体都不屑于报道。更无法吸引我们的注意。即使我们知道了 它也很难刺痛我们的神经。世间最痛苦的事莫过于看着他人经受苦难的却无能为力，于是我们选择了逃避。
If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution.
发现问题，只是迈出了第一步，接下来我们还要：寻找解决方案。
Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring. If we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization or individual asks “How can I help?,” then we can get action – and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares — and that makes it hard for their caring to matter.
如果不想让爱心变成空谈，就必须找到问题的解决方案。如果有清晰可靠的方案，那么政府或个人组织就能立刻采取行动，将爱心落实。但是世界的复杂性使找寻方案的过程无比艰难 于是爱心才沦为空谈。
Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have whether it’s something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bednet.
打破复杂性需要四个步骤：确定目标、找到最有效的途径、寻找最理想的技术，并合理利用现有技术。无论是制作复杂的药物，还是利用简单的蚊帐，都行。
The AIDS epidemic offers an example. The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention. The ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund vaccine research. But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand – and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior.
以艾滋病为例。我们的目标是消灭它。最有效的途径是预防，最理想的技术是注射一剂疫苗实现终身免疫。所以现在政府、制药公司、基金会都在资助疫苗的研究。但可能要十几年才能研究出来，所以目前的最好的预防措施就是避开那些可能传播艾滋病的行为。
Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again. This is the pattern. The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working – and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century – which is to surrender to complexity and quit.
四步循环直达目标。记住永远不要停止思考和行动——永远不要像人们在20世纪对待疟疾和肺结核那样，向疾病投降。
The final step – after seeing the problem and finding an approach – is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and failures so that others learn from your efforts.
在发现问题并找到解决方法后，还需监测结果，并与他人分享成功的经验和失败的教训，让别人也能从中受益。
You have to have the statistics, of course. You have to be able to show that a program is vaccinating millions more children. You have to be able to show a decline in the number of children dying from these diseases. This is essential not just to improve the program, but also to help draw more investment from business and government.
当然，你还得有统计数据。用来证明你的项目为上百万儿童接种了疫苗，证明这些孩子的死亡率降低了。这不仅有利于项目的改进，也有助于吸引更多的企业和政府投资。
But if you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show more than numbers. You have to convey the human impact of the work – so people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected.
但如果想吸引更多的人参与进来，光靠数字还远远不够。你需要展示出项目承载的价值，让他们明白挽救一个生命对其家庭的意义。
Remember going to Davos some years back and sitting on a global health panel that was discussing ways to save millions of lives. Millions! Think of the thrill of saving just one person’s life – then multiply that by millions. Yet this was the most boring panel I’ve ever been on – ever. So boring even I couldn’t bear it.
我记得几年前去达沃斯参加全球健康讨论会，关于如何挽救数百万人的生命。数百万人!只要想想挽救一条生命带来的震撼，再把这种震撼乘上几百万倍是什么感觉!然而，那是我见过的最无聊的讨论会。
What made that experience especially striking was that I had just come from an event where we were introducing version 13 of some piece of software, and we had people jumping and shouting with excitement. I love getting people excited about software – but why can’t we generate even more excitement for saving lives?
之所以铭记在心是因为我最近参加的一款软件发布会的现场氛围异常火爆。人们激动地欢呼雀跃。看到人们因为软件兴奋，我也很开心——但我们为什么无法对挽救生命更感兴趣呢?
You can’t get people excited unless you can help them see and feel the impact. And how you do that – is a complex question.
除非人们能感知到行动的影响力，否则人们就不会动心。如何做到这一点并不简单。
Still, I’m optimistic. Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but the new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us forever. They are new – they can help us make the most of our caring – and that’s why the future can be different from the past.
尽管如此，我还是很乐观。是的，不平等现象一直存在，但我们总会想出新的解决办法。新技术可以帮助我们传播爱心，我对未来充满信心。
The defining and ongoing innovations of this age – biotechnology, the computer, the Internet--give us a chance we’ve never had before to end extreme poverty and end death from preventable disease.
创新技术不断涌现，比如生物技术、计算机、互联网。让我们有机会终结救极度贫困和非恶性死亡。
Sixty years ago, George Marshall came to this commencement and announced a plan to assist the nations of post-war Europe. He said: “I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. It is virtually impossible at this distance to grasp at all the real significance of the situation.”
六十年前，乔治-马歇尔在哈佛的毕业典礼上宣布了一项协助战后欧洲的计划。他说：“我认为推动这项计划的困难在于，报纸和广播源源不断地提供各种事实，使得公众难以清晰地判断形势。事实上，经过层层传播，想要真正地把握形势，是根本不可能的。
Thirty years after Marshall made his address, as my class graduated without me, technology was emerging that would make the world smaller, more open, more visible, less distant.
马歇尔发表演讲三十年后，我的同学毕业了，科技开始发展，这个世界变得更小、更开放、更透明、人们之间的关系拉得更近。
The emergence of low-cost personal computers gave rise to a powerful network that has transformed opportunities for learning and communicating.
低成本个人电脑和互联网为人们提供了更多学习和交流的机会。
The magical thing about this network is not just that it collapses distance and makes everyone your neighbor. It also dramatically increases the number of brilliant minds we can have working together on the same problem and that scales up the rate of innovation to a staggering degree.
神奇的是，网络不仅缩短了人与人之间的距离，也增加了精英们集思广益共同解决难题的机会。加快了创新的规模和速度。
At the same time, for every person in the world who has access to this technology, five people don’t. That means many creative minds are left out of this discussion smart people with practical intelligence and relevant experience who don’t have the technology to hone their talents or contribute their ideas to the world.
然而世界上只有六分之一的人能够接触互联网，很多精英不能参与我们的讨论，很多人无法把它们解决问题的智慧和经验分享出 来。
We need as many people as possible to have access to this technology, because these advances are triggering a revolution in what human beings can do for one another.They are making it possible not just for national governments, but for universities, corporations, smaller organizations, and even individualsto see problems, see approaches, and measure the impact of their efforts to address the hunger, poverty, and desperation George Marshall spoke of 60 years ago.
如今，新技术将引发一场革命，让尽可能多的人与世界接轨，科技不仅为政府，也为大学、企业、小团体甚至个人带来了机会，而今这些机构和个人能够运用科技找到有效的解决60年前乔治•马歇尔谈到的饥荒、贫困和绝望。
Members of the Harvard Family: Here in the Yard is one of the great collections of intellectual talent in the world. What for?
各位哈佛大家庭的成员，你们是世界上少有的精英。我们为什么要上哈佛?
There is no question that the faculty, the alumni, the students, and the benefactors of Harvard have used their power to improve the lives of people here and around the world. But can we do more? Can Harvard dedicate its intellect to improving the lives of people who will never even hear its name?
毫无疑问，我们的教员、学生、校友都曾尽其所能改善全球人类的生活。我们还能更进一步吗?哈佛能够为不知道哈佛名气的陌生人奉献智慧，伸出援助之手吗?
Let me make a request of the deans and the professors the intellectual leaders here at Harvard: As you hire new faculty, award tenure, review curriculum, and determine degree requirements, please ask yourselves: Should our best minds be dedicated to solving our biggest problems?
请院长和教授接受我的不情之请，各位哈佛大学的精英领导者们，在你们雇用新教员、授予教授终身教职、评估课程安排和决定学位要求时，请问自己一个问题：最优秀的人才是否应该致力于解决人类的困境?
Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world’s worst inequities? Should Harvard students learn about the depth of global poverty … the prevalence of world hunger … the scarcity of clean water …the girls kept out of school the children who die from diseases we can cure?
哈佛是否应该鼓励教授解决世界上存在的严重不平等?哈佛的学生是不是应该多关注一些全球贫富不均、粮食短缺、水资源稀缺、女童辍学的问题?以及那些因无法接受有效治疗而死亡的孩子?
Should the world’s most privileged people learn about the lives of the world’s least privileged?
世界上最衣食无忧的人是否应该了解那些挣扎在死亡边缘的人们的生活?
These are not rhetorical questions – you will answer with your policies.
这并非言语修辞，这些问题只能用行动回答。
My mother, who was filled with pride the day I was admitted here – never stopped pressing me to do more for others. A few days before my wedding, she hosted a bridal event, at which she read aloud a letter about marriage that she had written to Melinda. My mother was very ill with cancer at the time, but she saw one more opportunity to deliver her message, and at the close of the letter she said: “From those to whom much is given, much is expected.”
我的母亲一直为我考上哈佛而自豪，也一直督促我回报社会。我结婚的前几天的仪式上，她高声朗读自己写给我妻子的信。当时我母亲已经是癌症晚期，但她坚持要用这个机会表达自己的观点。信的最后 她念道：“获益越多，责任越大。”
When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given – in talent, privilege, and opportunity – there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.
想想我们获得了什么——天赋，特权，机遇——世界寄予殷切的期望。
In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the graduates here to take on an issue –a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it.If you make it the focus of your career, that would be phenomenal.But you don’t have to do that to make an impact. For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them.
我希望每位毕业生承担起这样一种责任—— 参与解决人类不平等的问题，如果你献身这项事业，你的影响力将会是惊人的。既便不打算以此为业，你一样可以有所作为。每周只需要花几个小时，就可以利用互联网获取信息、找到志同道合的朋友、设法解决一两个问题。
Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.
不要畏难，尽管放手去做。它将是你生命中最宝贵经历。
You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time.As you leave Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had. You have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have. And with that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change with very little effort. You have more than we had; you must start sooner, and carry on longer.
这是一个神奇的时代。今天的科技是我年轻时不曾体验的。你们对不平等现象的认识远远超过我们这代人。面对这种不平等，你们更容易受良心的谴责。行动起来，时不我待。
And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world’s deepest inequities … on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.
30年后当你再次回到哈佛的时候，我希望看到你用自己的天赋和精力做了哪些事。不仅用专业成就来衡量成功，还要看你是如何解决人类根深蒂固的不平等问题。你是怎样对待那些与你相隔万里、迥然不同的人的。
Good luck.
同学们，祝你们好运!
成功的经历英语演讲篇3：马丁·路德·金演讲稿：我已达至峰顶 I've Been to the Mountaintop
Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. It's always good to have your closest friend and associate to say something good about you. And Ralph Abernathy is the best friend that I have in the world. I'm delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on anyhow.
Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God's children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there.
I would move on by Greece and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon. And I would watch them around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldn't stop there.
I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop there.
I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and aesthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there.
I would even go by the way that the man for whom I am named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church of Wittenberg. But I wouldn't stop there.
I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating President by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn't stop there.
I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but "fear itself." But I wouldn't stop there.
Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy."
Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding.
Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee -- the cry is always the same: "We want to be free."
And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.
And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and done in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I'm just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period to see what is unfolding. And I'm happy that He's allowed me to be in Memphis.
I can remember -- I can remember when Negroes were just going around as Ralph has said, so often, scratching where they didn't itch, and laughing when they were not tickled. But that day is all over. We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God's world.
And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying -- We are saying that we are God's children. And that we are God's children, we don't have to live like we are forced to live.
Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.
Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers. Now, we've got to keep attention on that. That's always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day, and the press dealt only with the window-breaking. I read the articles. They very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that one thousand, three hundred sanitation workers are on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor. They didn't get around to that.
Now we're going to march again, and we've got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be -- and force everybody to see that there are thirteen hundred of God's children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That's the issue. And we've got to say to the nation: We know how it's coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.
We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don't know what to do. I've seen them so often. I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there, we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by the hundreds we would move out. And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth, and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around."
Bull Connor next would say, "Turn the fire hoses on." And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn't know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn't relate to the transphysics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out. And we went before the fire hoses; we had known water. If we were Baptist or some other denominations, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist, and some others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew water. That couldn't stop us.
And we just went on before the dogs and we would look at them; and we'd go on before the water hoses and we would look at it, and we'd just go on singing "Over my head I see freedom in the air." And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can. And they would throw us in, and old Bull would say, "Take 'em off," and they did; and we would just go in the paddy wagon singing, "We Shall Overcome." And every now and then we'd get in jail, and we'd see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our prayers, and being moved by our words and our songs. And there was a power there which Bull Connor couldn't adjust to; and so we ended up transforming Bull into a steer, and we won our struggle in Birmingham. Now we've got to go on in Memphis just like that. I call upon you to be with us when we go out Monday.
Now about injunctions: We have an injunction and we're going into court tomorrow morning to fight this illegal, unconstitutional injunction. All we say to America is, "Be true to what you said on paper." If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we aren't going to let dogs or water hoses turn us around, we aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on.
We need all of you. And you know what's beautiful to me is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones. And whenever injustice is around he tell it. Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and saith, "When God speaks who can but prophesy?" Again with Amos, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Somehow the preacher must say with Jesus, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me," and he's anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor."
And I want to commend the preachers, under the leadership of these noble men: James Lawson, one who has been in this struggle for many years; he's been to jail for struggling; he's been kicked out of Vanderbilt University for this struggle, but he's still going on, fighting for the rights of his people. Reverend Ralph Jackson, Billy Kiles; I could just go right on down the list, but time will not permit. But I want to thank all of them. And I want you to thank them, because so often, preachers aren't concerned about anything but themselves. And I'm always happy to see a relevant ministry.
It's all right to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here! It's all right to talk about "streets flowing with milk and honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preacher must talk about the new New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.
Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people. Individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively -- that means all of us together -- collectively we are richer than all the nations in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the American Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.
We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles. We don't need any Molotov cocktails. We just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."
And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy -- what is the other bread? -- Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on town -- downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.
But not only that, we've got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your money in Tri-State Bank. We want a "bank-in" movement in Memphis. Go by the savings and loan association. I'm not asking you something that we don't do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We are telling you to follow what we are doing. Put your money there. You have six or seven black insurance companies here in the city of Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We want to have an "insurance-in."
Now these are some practical things that we can do. We begin the process of building a greater economic base. And at the same time, we are putting pressure where it really hurts. I ask you to follow through here.
Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point in Memphis. We've got to see it through. And when we have our march, you need to be there. If it means leaving work, if it means leaving school -- be there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.
Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base....
Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But he got down with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother.
Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn't stop. At times we say they were busy going to a church meeting, an ecclesiastical gathering, and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn't be late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that there was a religious law that "One who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours before the ceremony." And every now and then we begin to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem -- or down to Jericho, rather to organize a "Jericho Road Improvement Association." That's a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the causal root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effect.
But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible that those men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as the setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles -- or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the priest asked -- the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" The question is, "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.
Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.
You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?" And I was looking down writing, and I said, "Yes." And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, your drowned in your own blood -- that's the end of you.
It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had merely sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what that letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply,
Dear Dr. King,
I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School."
And she said,
While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I'm a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze.
And I want to say tonight -- I want to say tonight that I too am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream, and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1961, when we decided to take a ride for freedom and ended segregation in inter-state travel.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent.
If I had sneezed -- If I had sneezed I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, to see the great Movement there.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been in Memphis to see a community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering.
I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.
And they were telling me --. Now, it doesn't matter, now. It really doesn't matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us. The pilot said over the public address system, "We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with on the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night."
And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!
mlkmountaintop3.JPG
And so I'm happy, tonight.
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man!
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!
(中文版部分翻译)
但是我要告诉你们我的想象力给我的启示。很可能其实是这些人都觉得害怕，你看，耶利哥之路是一条危险的路途。我还记得我和我的妻子第一次到耶路撒冷的情形。我们租了一辆车然后从耶路撒冷开往耶利哥，但我们上路之后，我就跟我妻子说道:“我现在明白为什么耶稣要拿这条路来作比喻了。”这是一条蜿蜒曲折的道路，非常有利于埋伏，你从耶路撒冷出发，这大约是1200英里，也即海平面以上1200英尺。而当15或者20分钟之后，你到达耶利哥时，你却在海平面以下2200英尺。那真是一条危险的路途啊!在耶稣的时代，它就以“血腥之途(Bloody Pass)”而为人所知。而且你知道，可能那个利未人和那个教士检查了地上的那个人，而怀疑那些盗贼是否仍在附近，抑或是他们认为这个人仅仅是在伪装，他只是装作被抢劫了被打伤了，目的是为了抓住他们，引诱他们从而快速而简单的捉住他们。所以那个利未人的第一个问题是：如果我停下来帮助这个人的话，有什么事会发生在我身上?但是接着那个好心的撒玛利亚人(Samaritan)过来了，他颠倒着这个问题：如果我不停下来帮助这个人的话他会怎么样?这就是今晚摆在我们面前的问题，不是“如果我停下来帮助这些环卫工人的话，我的工作会有什么影响?”不是“如果我停下来帮助这些环卫工人的话，那些我作为一个牧师花在办公室里的一天接一天，一个礼拜接一个礼拜的时间会怎么样?”问题不是：“如果我帮助了这个需要帮助的人，我会怎么样?”问题是：“如果我不帮助这些环卫工人的话，他会怎么样?”这才是我们的问题。
今晚让我们以更高的积极性起来反抗吧!让我们以更大的决心站起来!让我们在这伟大的时代继续前行，在这有机会使美国成为真正的美国的时代!我们有这样一个机会使美国成为一个更好的国家!同时，我要再一次感谢仁慈的主，让我能和你们在一起前行!
你们应该知道，几年前，那时我在纽约，为我的第一本书签名，当我坐在那里签名的时候，一个精神有问题的黑人妇女过来了，我听到他问的唯一一个问题就是：“你是马丁路德金吗?”但是我正埋头签名，我回答道：“是啊。”接着下一秒我就感觉到我的胸部被什么东西刺中了，在我意识到的时候我已经被这个精神有问题的妇女刺中了。我即刻被送到了Harlem医院，这是一个黑沉沉的礼拜六的下午。那柄刀穿透了我的胸部，通过X光片可以看到刀刃正好从主动脉的边缘穿过，一旦主动脉被刺穿，你就会被你的血所淹没，也就是你的生命将终结。第二天早上纽约时报上登出来了，如果我打了喷嚏的话，我就会死掉。四天之后，在手术之后，在我的胸口被打开刀刃被取出来之后，他们允许我坐在轮椅上在医院里四处走走，他们允许我看一些从美国乃至世界各地邮寄来的信件，善意的来信。我看了一些，但是只有一封我永远都不会忘记。我收到了一封总统先生和副总统先生的来信，但我已经忘了信上说了什么了。我还接受了纽约市长的访问以及他的一封信，我也几经忘了这封信上说的什么了。但是有一封信，来自一个小姑娘，她在白原高校(White Plains High School)念书，我看了那封信，我终生难忘。信很简单：“亲爱的金博士：我是一个在白原高校廿九年级的学生，”她说，“这虽然没有什么关系，但我还是要说出来，我是个白人女孩，我在报纸上看到你的不幸，你的遭遇。并且我读到如果你打了喷嚏的话，就会死掉，而我写这封信给你其实只是想告诉你，我真的很高兴你没有打喷嚏。”
今晚我想说，今晚，我想说，我也很高兴我没有打喷嚏，因为如果那个时候我打了喷嚏的话，1960年我就不会出现在这里，当时整个南部的(黑人)学生开始了在午餐台边坐着吃饭，而我知道当他们可以坐着吃饭的时候，他们正真正抬起头来实现着美国梦中最美妙的精神。他们带着整个国家回归到伟大的民主的源泉，这源泉由建国者们在《独立宣言》和《宪法》中深深挖掘。那个时候我打了喷嚏的话，1961年，我不会出现在这里，那时我们决定搭上自由之车，终止在州与州之间旅行时存在的隔离。如果那个时候我打了喷嚏的话，1962年我不会出现在这里，当时，在佐治亚的奥尔巴尼，人们决定挺直他们的腰杆，而一旦人们挺直了腰板，他们才会有所建树，因为人不能扛着背前行，除非他的背断掉了。如果那个时候我打了喷嚏的话，1963年我不会出现在这里，那时，阿拉巴马伯明翰的黑人们唤起了这个国家的良知，使民权法案获得了通过。如果那个时候我打了喷嚏的话，1964年我不会有机会告诉美国我一直以来的一个梦想。如果那个时候我打了喷嚏的话，我不会在阿拉巴马塞尔玛目睹一场伟大的运动。如果那个时候我打了喷嚏的话，我不会在孟菲斯看到一个团结了那么多饱受苦难的兄弟姐妹的社团。我真的很高兴我没有打喷嚏。
而他们告诉我---现在，没有。
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