DreamABC送你马克吐温《给年轻人的忠告》的中英文版

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”每当你发现自己和大多数人站在一边，你就该停下来反思一下。这是马克吐温经典语录的一句，很喜欢这句话，作为自己的人生向导。

马克·吐温一生写了大量作品，题材涉及小说、剧本、散文、诗歌等各方面。从内容上说，他的作品批判了不合理现象或人性的丑恶之处，表达了这位当过排字工人和水手的作家强烈的正义感和对普通人民的关心；从风格上说，专家们和一般读者都认为，幽默和讽刺是他的写作特点。他经历了美国从初期资本主义到帝国主义的发展过程，其思想和创作也表现为从轻快调笑到辛辣讽刺再到悲观厌世的发展阶段，前期以辛辣的讽刺见长，到了后期语言更为暴露激烈。

图书有许多种类；但好书才是年轻人该读的一类，给大家分享《给年轻人的忠告》的中英文版。

Advice to the Young

——By 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.

听说人们希望我在这里讲几句时，我就问他们我该讲些什么。他们希望我讲些适合年轻人的东西——一些教诲性、有教育意义的东西，或是一些好的建议。

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.

关于开导青年人，我心里倒是有几件事时常要说的；因为正是在人幼小时，这些事最适合扎根，而且最持久最有价值。那么，首先呢，我要对你们，我的年轻的朋友们说的是――我恳切的，迫切的要说的是：

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.

永远要听父母的话，长远来讲这是最聪明的做法，如果你不听话，他们就会逼着你听话。

Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment.

大多数父母认为他们知道得 比你们多，在这种情况下，与其基于自己的判断行事，还不如迎合他们的想法，这样你会收获更多。

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.

对待上司要尊重，要是你们有上司；对待陌生人，有时还有别人，也要尊重。如果有人得罪了你们，你们要犹豫一番，看看是存心的还是无意的，不要采取极端的做法；只要看好机会用砖头打他一下，那就足够了。

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.

如果发现他并非有意伤害你，那么，你就应该站出来，坦白承认教训他的事；要像一个男子汉一样承认错误并说明自己 并非有意。还有就是，切勿使用暴力。

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.

况且，永远要避免动武；处于这个仁慈和和睦的时代，此类举动的年代已经过去了。“炸药”留给卑下而无教养的人吧。

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.

早睡早起——这是十分明智的。有些人主动起床，也有些人被迫起床。当然在百灵鸟的歌声中起床是最惬意不过了。

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.

当人人都知道你与百灵鸟同迎清晨，你便会备受称赞，如果你得 到一只中意的百灵鸟，并按自己的意愿训练它，让他九点半， 甚至是任何时候起床都不是件难事——当然，这并不是说要耍诡计。

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.

现在，我们来谈谈说谎吧。要说谎，就得小心谨慎，否则 很容易穿帮。一旦被揭穿，别人就不再认为你是善良的和纯洁的，他们眼中的你就不是从前的你了。

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 ought not to lie at all.

很多年轻人就因为一个笨拙或并不圆满的谎言永远地伤害了自己，原因在于他们不够谨慎且缺乏训练。有些人认为，年轻人不能撒谎。

That of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary; still while I cannot go quite so far as that, I do maintain, andI 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.

当然，这有些偏激。我不会这么偏激，而是始终相信自己是有道理的，我 认为，年轻人应适当运用这门伟大的艺术，通过训练和实践， 他们将变得自信、优雅和精确，而这些恰恰可以使他们完美出色地完成任务。

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.

耐心、勤奋和对细节的认真揣摩-都是年轻人必须具备的条件。随着时间的流逝，这些要素将会使你们日臻完美，而你们也只有仰仗这些要素才能成就日后的辉煌。

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 compound fracture of fact which any of man born has yet achieved.

想 想那位无可匹敌的大师吧,多年沉闷乏味的学习、思考、实践 和练习才使他得以在世人面前说出这样的经典语句一一 “真理 有着巨大的力量，并将战胜一切”——这是最伟大的悖论，是凡人所能达到的最高境界。

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. 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.

历史和个人的经历都深刻地表明真理易被推翻，但绝妙的谎言却永远颠扑不破。波士顿立有一座纪念麻醉术发明者的纪念碑。但后来，很多人发现，这个人 根本不是麻醉术的发明者，他不过是窃取了他人的成果。真理的力量真的很强大吗？它能战胜一切吗？哦，不，朋友们，那座纪念碑是用很坚固的材料做成，但它所昭示的谎言将比纪念碑本身还要久一百万年。

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.

笨拙、没有说服力和漏洞百出的谎言是你应当通过不断学习去避免的，这样的谎言还不及一般真理长久。为什么呢，你还是说出真相吧，现在就说。一个没有说服力、可笑、荒谬的谎言不会存在两年——除非它是对某人的诽谤。

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.

它是不可摧毁的，当然，但这不是你的优点。最后一个词:开始你这种亲切的行为。

美丽的艺术从现在开始。如果我早点开始，我就能学会怎么做了。

正如美国评论家威廉·豪威尔斯评马克·吐温是独一无二的，无法相比的，他是美国文学中的林肯。美国作家威廉·福克纳评马克·吐温是第一位真正的美国作家，我们都是继承他而来。

有很多东西值得我们学习，这些著作我想比那些不知名的小说更有价值。学习要学有用的，并且要学以致用，每一条忠告都要深思体会。