盖茨的哈佛演讲辞

唐静 译

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:

校长博克，前任校长鲁登斯坦，接任校长福斯特，校董事会的各位董事，校务监督委员会的各位委员，各位老师，各位家长，特别是，诸位毕业生：

I’ve been waiting more than 30 years to say this: "Dad, I always told you I’d come back and get my degree."

我一直等了三十多年，现在终于可以说了：“爸，我老跟你说，我会回来拿到我的学位的！”

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 resume.

感谢哈佛及时地给我这个荣誉。明年，我就要换工作（译者注：从微软公司退休）……我终于可以在简历上写我有一个大学学历，这真是不错啊。

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.

我为在座的各位毕业生而鼓掌，你们拿到学位可比我轻松多了。而我，之所以高兴，是因为哈佛的校报称我是“哈佛大学历史上最成功的辍学生”。我想这大概使我有资格代表我这一类特殊的学生在此致辞——在所有的失败者中，我做得最好。

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.

同时，我也想让大家也知道，我就是那个让史蒂夫∙鲍尔默（译者注：微软总经理）也从哈佛商学院退学的家伙；我影响恶劣。这就是我被邀请来在你们的毕业典礼上做演讲的原因。要是我在你们的入学欢迎仪式上演讲，那今天在此的毕业生可能就更少了。

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 anti-social group. We clung to each other as a way of validating our rejection of all those social people.

对我来说，哈佛的求学是一段非凡的经历。哈佛的课堂生活令人神往，我以前常常去旁听一些课程，甚至连名都不报。哈佛的课外生活也异彩纷呈，我在拉德克里夫学院的卡瑞尔宿舍楼过着逍遥自在的日子。每天我的寝室里总有一帮人待到半夜，讨论着各种事情，因为他们都知道我从不担心第二天要早起。这就让我慢慢变成了“反社会头目”，我们紧密地团结在一起，并以此来证明，我们抵制一切“世俗的人们”。

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.

拉德克里夫是个适合生活的好地方。那里的女生比男生多，而且大多数男生都是理工科的；这给我创造了最好的机会，如果你们明白我意思的话。可惜的是，我正是在这里学到了人生中悲伤的一课：机会多，并不等于你就会成功。