爱，很好。因为爱是艰难的。当一个人去爱另一个人，这也许是神给予我们的最艰难、最重大的任务，是最后的考验与测试，是最崇高的工作，别的工作都不过是为此而做的准备。所以那些一切都还刚刚开始的青年们还不能去爱，他们必须要学习。必须用他们整个的生命，用一切的力量，用集聚了他们寂寞、痛苦和荣誉感的心去学习爱。在学习时期这个长久而专注的过程中，爱就会永远地铭刻心扉——深深的寂寞中孤独地等待，是为了所爱的人。爱的要义并不是什么倾心、献身，或二人的结合（那会是怎样的一种结合呢？是一种糊涂的、不负责任的、轻率的结合）。它对于个人是一种崇高的动力，是去成熟并实现自身的圆满，去完成一个世界，是为了另一个人而完成一个自己的世界，这是一个艰巨的、不可妥协的目标，用坚定的信念，向远方召唤。青年们应把爱当做他们的课业、他们工作的意义，并在其中（“昼夜不停地探索、锤炼”）使用那些给予他们的爱。至于倾心、献身以及结合，还不是他们所能做的（他们还需长时间地克制、积累），那是最后的终点，也许是我们现在还几乎不能达到的境界。
It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginner sin everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time ahead and far on into life, is solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent). it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. Only in this sense, as the task of working on themselves ( “to hearken and to hammer day and night”), may young people use the love that is given to them. Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough.
人类的故事
The Human Story
温斯顿·丘吉尔 / Winston Churchill
当历史巨大的卷轴展开之时，许多错综复杂的事件出现了，而这些事件很难有效地纳入我们这个时代人们的好恶模式之中。
人类的故事并不总是像数学运算一样根据二加二等于四的原则展开。人的一生中，有时可能等于五或负三；有时，正算到一半，黑板倒塌，使全班陷于混乱，教师被砸得鼻青脸肿。
现在科学用一只手给我们奉献了一个黄金年代，但同时又用另一只手给我们制造了一个厄运，我们自从石器时代以及任何人类历史开始以来一点点建造起来的一切都将陷入困境。但我深信，人类的命运是非常积极向上的。我不相信我们将被扔进由自己才智发明所构成的黑暗深渊中。务必要确保我们主宰那些发明，而不要被那些发明所主宰。
发明的用处应该是治愈病人，为生活提供更多的食物和娱乐。如果它被用来帮助强者压迫弱者，掠夺熟睡的人们，它就是怀着不虔诚的动机去利用真理。以这种方式亵渎神灵的人们将遭到报应和惩罚，因为他们的武器将反过来对付他们自己。
As the great scroll of history unrolls, many complicated incidents occur which it is difficult to introduce effectively into the pattern of the likes and dislikes of the epoch in which we live.
The human story does not always unfold like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four. Sometimes in life they make five or minus three; and sometimes the blackboard topples down in the middle of the sum and leaves the class in disorder and the pedagogue with a black eye.
Science, which now offers us a golden age with one hand, offers at the same time with the other the doom of all that we have built up inch by inch since the Stone Age and the dawn of any human annals. My faith is in the high progressive destiny of man. I do not believe that we are to be flung back into abysmal darkness of fiercesome discoveries which human genius has made let us make sure that they are our servants, but not our masters.
Its place in the healing of the sick, and in giving more food and leisure for life. When it helps the strong crush the weak, and rob those who are asleep, it is using truth for impious ends. Those who are thus sacrilegious will suffer and be punished, for their own weapons will be turned against them.
人的指导者
Man’s Guide
温斯顿·丘吉尔 / Winston Churchill
温斯顿·丘吉尔（1874—1965），英国传记作家、历史学家、政治家。生于牛津附近的布莱尼姆宫。1893年考入桑德斯特陆军军官学校，1895年，以少尉军衔编入皇家第四骑兵团。1945年，在反法西斯胜利前夕，因保守党在大选中失败，丘吉尔失去首相职位。其后，他用六年时间完成了六卷本《第二次世界大战回忆录》。1951年，保守党在选举中获胜，丘吉尔77岁高龄再次出任首相。1955年因年事高辞职退休，专心撰写四卷本《英语民族史》。1965年1月因脑溢血辞世。
在人类历史的这一时刻，对于自然力量的控制，人类已经大大超越了以往所梦想的程度。如果人类希望的话，摆在他们面前的是一个和平与发展的黄金年代。他们仅仅需要征服最后也是最厉害的敌人——自己。
对一个人来说，唯一的指导者是他自己的良心，记忆唯一的护卫是他行为的正直和真诚。如果在人生的旅途之中前行而没有这个保护，是失之轻率的，因为我们常会被希望的破灭所嘲弄，但是有了这个保护，不管命运如何，我们可以永远前进在荣誉的行列中。
我们将一起前行，前方的路很长。旅途中，我们可能会遇到一些黑暗而危险的幽谷，我们必须从那里经过，而且还要与之进行艰苦的斗争。但是只要我们坚持不懈——我们将坚持不懈——我们一定可以走出这些黑暗而危险的幽谷，进入一个人类前所未知的广阔、温暖而持久的光明世界。
Man in this moment of his history has emerged in greater supremacy over the forces of nature than has ever been dreamed of before. There lies before him, if he wishes, a golden age of peace and progress. He has only to conquer his last and worst enemy—himself.
The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes, but with this shield, however the Fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.
We shall go forward together. The road upward is long. There are upon our journey dark and dangerous valleys, through which we have to make and fight our way. But it is sure and certain that if we persevere, and we shall persevere, we shall come through these dark and dangerous valleys into a sunlight broader and more genial and more lasting than mankind has ever known.
美腿与丑腿
The Handsome and Deformed Leg
本杰明·富兰克林 / Benjamin Franklin
本杰明·富兰克林（1706—1790），18世纪美国最伟大的科学家，著名的政治家和文学家。他生于北美洲的波士顿，幼年家境贫穷，一生只受过两年正式教育。八岁入学，十岁辍学，此后又当了近十年的印刷工人。但他自学从未间断过，从自然科学、技术方面的读物到著名科学家的论文以及名家作品，无不涉猎。
1726年，他出版了《穷查理历书》，当时被译成十二种文字，畅销欧美各国，也奠定了他在文学上地位。独立战争爆发后，他参加了第二届大陆会议和《独立宣言》的起草工作。
1790年4月17日，深夜11点，富兰克林溘然逝去。他一生最真实的写照是他自己所过的一句话“诚实和勤勉，应该成为你永久的伴侣。”本文是作者于1780年创作的，当时他正在法国为国事奔走，却仍然有闲情雅致写这种轻松的文章，此文足以窥见作者美国式的幽默和机智。
这世上有两种人，他们拥有着同样的健康、财富以及其他生活上的享受，但是，一种人快乐，另一种人却烦恼。这很大程度上缘于他们对事物的观点不同，比如对人和对事，因此产生了快乐和烦恼的差别。
人无论处于什么境地，总是会遇到“幸”与“不幸”。不管在什么场合，与什么样的人接触并进行交流，总有让他开心或烦心的；无论在什么样的餐桌前吃饭，酒肉总有对味和不对味的，餐具也总有精致和粗糙的；无论在什么气候下，他们总能遭遇好天气或坏天气；无论哪个政府统治，法律条文总有好坏之分；再伟大的诗句或著作中，总能挑出精彩的和平庸的；差不多每一个人的脸上，都有美丽和难看的地方，每一个人，也总有优点和缺点。