And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

而且，許多人根本不喜歡訓(xùn)練他們的想象力。他們寧愿在自己的經(jīng)驗(yàn)范圍內(nèi)維持舒適的狀態(tài)，也不愿麻煩地去思考這樣的問題：如果他們不是現(xiàn)在的自己，那么應(yīng)該是什么感覺呢？他們拒絕聽到尖叫，拒絕關(guān)注囚牢，他們可以對(duì)任何與他們自身無關(guān)的苦難關(guān)上思維與心靈的大門，他們可以拒絕知道這些。

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

我可能會(huì)羨慕那些以這種方式生活的人，但我不認(rèn)為他們的噩夢(mèng)比我少。選擇在狹小的空間生活會(huì)導(dǎo)致精神上的恐曠癥（對(duì)于陌生人、事物的恐懼），而且會(huì)帶來它自身形成的恐怖。我想那些任性固執(zhí)的缺乏想象力的人會(huì)看到更多的怪物，他們常常更容易感到害怕。

What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

甚至于，那些選擇不去想他人所想的人可能激活真正的惡魔。因?yàn)椋m然我們沒有親手犯下那些昭然若揭的惡行，我們卻以冷漠的方式和邪惡在串謀。

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

十八歲時(shí)，為了尋找那時(shí)我無法描述的目的，我踏上了古典文學(xué)的探險(xiǎn)道路；當(dāng)走到盡頭的時(shí)候，我學(xué)到了很多東西，其中之一就是希臘作家Plutarch的這句話：我們?cè)趦?nèi)心的所得，將改變外界的現(xiàn)實(shí)。

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing.

這是一個(gè)令人驚訝的說法，然而它在我們生命中每一天會(huì)被證明一千多次。這句話部分地說明了我們和外部世界不可分離的聯(lián)系，我們只能通過生命存在來接觸別人生命的事實(shí)。

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower. 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. That is your privilege, and your burden.

但是你們，2008哈佛大學(xué)的畢業(yè)生們，到底有多么得愿意來感受他人的生命呢？你們對(duì)付困難工作的智慧與能力，你們贏得和接受的教育，給了你們獨(dú)特的地位和責(zé)任。甚至你們的國籍也使你們與眾不同。你們中的很大一部分人屬于這個(gè)世界剩下的唯一超級(jí)大國（美國）。你們投票、生活、抗議的方式，你們給政府施加的壓力，會(huì)產(chǎn)生超越國界的影響。那是你們的特權(quán)，更是你們的負(fù)擔(dān)。

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; 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, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

如果你們選擇用你們的地位和影響力來為沒法發(fā)出聲音的人說話；如果你們選擇不僅認(rèn)同有權(quán)的強(qiáng)勢(shì)群體，也認(rèn)同無權(quán)的弱勢(shì)群體；如果你們保留你們的能力，用來想象那些沒有你們這些優(yōu)勢(shì)的人的現(xiàn)實(shí)生活，那么不僅是你們的家庭為你們的存在而感到自豪，為你們慶祝，而且那些因?yàn)槟銈兊膸椭畹酶玫臄?shù)以千萬計(jì)的人，會(huì)一起來為你們祝賀。我們不需要魔法來改變世界，我們已經(jīng)在我們的內(nèi)心擁有了足夠的力量：那就是把世界想象成更好的力量。

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. 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. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, 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.

在我的演說快要結(jié)束的時(shí)候，我對(duì)大家還有最后一個(gè)希望，這是我在自己21歲時(shí)就明白的道理。畢業(yè)那天和我坐在一起的朋友后來成了我終生的朋友。他們是我孩子的教父母；他們是我碰到麻煩時(shí)能求助的人；他們是非常友善的，不會(huì)為了我以他們的名字給食死徒(書中反面角色)命名而控告我。在我們畢業(yè)的時(shí)候，我們沉浸在巨大的情感沖擊中；我們沉浸于這段永不能重現(xiàn)的共同時(shí)光內(nèi)；當(dāng)然，如果我們中的某個(gè)人將來成為國家首相，我們也沉浸于能擁有極其有價(jià)值的相片作為證據(jù)的興奮中。

So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, 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:

所以今天，我最希望你們能擁有同樣的友情。到了明天，我希望即使你們不記得我說過的任何一個(gè)字，但能記住塞內(nèi)加，我在逃離那個(gè)走廊，回想進(jìn)步的階梯，尋找古人智慧時(shí)碰到的另一個(gè)古羅馬哲學(xué)家，說過的一句話：

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

“生活如同小說，要緊的不是它有多長，而在于它有多好?！?/p>

I wish you all very good lives.

我祝愿你們都有幸福的生活。

Thank you very much.

謝謝大家。