双语对照 ● Advice to Youth 马克·吐温致青年人的忠告
Advice to Youth 马克·吐温致青年人的忠告
◎ Mark Twain
Being told I would be expected to talk here, I inquired what sort of talk I ought to make. They said it should be something suitable to youth—something didactic, instructive, or something in the nature of good advice. Very well. I have a few things in my mind which I have often longed to say for the instruction of the young; for it is in one’s tender early years that such things will best take root and be most enduring and most valuable, First, then. I will say to you my young friends—and I say it beseechingly, urgingly—
听说期望我来谈谈，我便想要知道应该发表怎样的谈话。他们说应该是适合于青年人的话题，比如教育性的、启发性的，或者是一些本质上是金玉良言那类的话题。好吧！关于指导青年人，我心里其实有几件时常想要说的事。因为就是在人的幼年时期，这些事情才更容易扎根，更能持久和最有价值。那么，首先，我要对青年朋友们说的是——我诚恳地、迫切地想要说的是——
Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in the long run, because if you don’t, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition[81]than you can by acting on your own better judgment.
父母在场的时候，要永远服从他们。长远看来这是上策，因为如果你不服从他们的话，他们也会想方设法让你服从。大多数父母觉得他们比你懂得多，一般来说，你们相信这种迷信的说法，要比根据自以为是的判断行事来得好。
Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any, also to strangers, and sometimes to others. If a person offend you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick. That will be sufficient. If you shall find that he had not intended any offense, come out frankly and confess yourself in the wrong when you struck him; acknowledge it like a man and say you didn’t mean to. Yes, always avoid violence; in this age of charity and kindliness, the time has gone by for such things. Leave dynamite to the low and unrefined[82].
尊重你的上司，在你有了上司之后。尊重陌生人，有时也要尊重其他人。如果一个人冒犯了你，你要稍微怀疑一下，看看他们是存心的还是无心的，不要采取极端的方法。如果你发现他并无心要冒犯你，那就坦白承认自己打他是不对的。像个男子汉那样承认错误，并说声不是故意的。是的，永远都不要采用暴力。身在这个充满仁慈善意的时代里，暴力的时代已然远去。把“炸药”留给低俗又无教养的人吧！
Go to bed early, get up early—this is wise. Some authorities say get up with the sun; some say get up with one thing, others with another. But a lark is really the best thing to get up with. It gives you a splendid reputation with everybody to know that you get up with the lark; and if you get the right kind of lark, and work at him right, you can easily train him to get up at half past nine, every time—it’s no trick at all.
早睡早起——这是一种明智之举。有些权威人士说要跟着太阳起床；而有些则说跟着这个东西起床，其他人说跟着那个东西起床。然而，跟着云雀起床是最好不过了。你因此获得好名声，人人都知道你跟着云雀起床。如果你有幸找到一只好的云雀，在它身上花点功夫，你能很容易地把它训练成每天九点半起床——这可不是骗人的把戏。
Now as to the matter of lying, you want to be very careful about lying; otherwise you are nearly sure to get caught. Once caught, you can never again be in the eyes to the good and the pure, what you were before. Many a young person has injured himself permanently through a single clumsy and ill finished lie, the result of carelessness born of incomplete training. Some authorities hold that the young out not to lie at all. That of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary; still while I cannot go quite so far as that, I do maintain, and I believe I am right, that the young ought to be temperate in the use of this great art until practice and experience shall give them that confidence, elegance, and precision which alone can make the accomplishment graceful and profitable. Patience, diligence, painstaking attention to detail—these are requirements; these in time, will make the student perfect; upon these only, may he rely as the sure foundation for future eminence. Think what tedious years of study, thought, practice, experience, went to the equipment of that peerless old master who was able to impose upon the whole world the lofty and sounding maxim that “Truth is mighty and will prevail”—the most majestic[83]compound fracture of fact which any of woman born has yet achieved. For the history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sewn thick with evidences that a truth is not hard to kill, and that a lie well told is immortal. There is in Boston a monument of the man who discovered anesthesia; many people are aware, in these latter days, that that man didn’t discover it at all, but stole the discovery from another man.
现在来谈谈说谎的问题。你要小心应付说谎，否则你被揭穿的机会十有八九。一旦被揭穿，在善良和纯洁的目光中，你再也不是以前的你了。许多青年人，由于接受的教育不完整而导致处事轻率，从而编造了一个难以自圆其说的笨拙谎言，最后伤害了自己。一些权威人士认为青年人根本不该说谎。当然，这种说法有点过于偏激，或者说情况并非真的如此。虽然我无法把话说得太过，但我仍然坚信自己的观点是正确的。我认为青年人应该适当地运用这门伟大的艺术，当然前提条件是他们从实践和经验身上获得了信心、高雅和严谨。因为这三点中的任何一点都能让谎言变得高雅、有益。耐心、勤奋和细致入微——这些都是必要的素质。随着时间的推移，这些素质能够让学生变得完美。有了这些，只要有了这些，他才能为以后的功成名就打下坚实的基础。试想一下，通过多年乏味的学习、思考、实践、亲身体验，那位盖世无双的大师才能拥有这些素质，才能强迫整个世界接受“真理是强大的，而且终将取得胜利！”这句崇高而掷地有声的格言——这句关于事实的复杂层面说出的最崇高的话，任何一个女人都未曾获得过。因为人类的历史和每个个人的经验都深深地将这样的证据埋藏起来：一个真理不难抹杀，可一个巧妙的谎言却能经久不衰。波士顿有个纪念碑，专门为发现麻醉法的人而立的。后来人们才知道，那个人根本就没有发现麻醉法，他只是盗取了另一个人的发现。
Is this truth mighty, and will it prevail? Ah no, my hearers, the monument is made of hardy material, but the lie it tells will outlast it a million years. An awkward, feeble, leaky lie is a thing which you ought to make it your unceasing study to avoid; such a lie as that has no more real permanence than an average truth. Why, you might as well tell the truth at once and be done with it. A feeble, stupid, preposterous lie will not live two years—except it be a slander upon somebody. It is indestructible, then of course, but that is no merit of yours. A final word: begin your practice of this gracious and beautiful art early—begin now. If I had begun earlier, I could have learned how.
这个真理强大吗？它能最终取得胜利吗？唉，不会的。听众们，纪念碑是用坚硬的材料建成的，但它向世人说的谎却比它持久百万年。一个笨拙的、不攻自破的、漏洞百出的谎言是你应该不断学会避免的东西。这样的谎言甚至不比一个普通的事实来得更具真实的永恒性。那你为何不既讲真话又相信真理呢？一个不攻自破的、愚蠢的、荒谬的谎言持续不了两年——除非是对某人的诽谤。因为那种谎言是牢不可破的，当然那也不是你值得夸耀的东西。最后说一句：早点开始实践这门高雅美妙的艺术——立刻开始吧！如果我能早点开始实践，我想我已经学会这门艺术了。
美丽语录
If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up.
想要实现梦想，就先从梦中醒来。
