乔布斯在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的英文演讲稿(附翻译)

乔布斯在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的英文

演讲稿（附翻译）

this is the text of the commencement address by

steve

jobs,

ceo

of

apple

computer

and

of

pixar

animation

studios, delivered on june 12, XX.

i

am

honored

to

be

with

you

today

at

your

commencement

from

one

of

the

finest

universities

in

the

world. i never graduated from college. truth be told,

i

never

graduated

from

college.

this

is

the

closest

i've

ever gotten to a college graduation. today i want to

tell you three stories from my life. that's it. no big

deal. just three stories.

斯坦福是世界 上最好的大学之一，今天能参加各位的毕

业典礼，我备感荣幸。

(

尖叫声

)

我从来没有从大学毕业，说

句实话，此时算是我离大学毕业最近的一刻。

(

笑声

)

今天，

我想告诉你们我 生命中的三个故事，并非什么了不得的大事

件，只是三个小故事而已。

< br>

the first story is about connecting the dots.

第一个故事

关于串起生命中的点点滴滴

i dropped out of reed college after the first 6

months,

but

then

stayed

around

as

a

drop-in

for

another

18

months

or

so

before

i

really

quit.

so

why

did

i

drop

out?

退学是我这一生所做出的最正确的 决定之一。我在里德

大学待了

6

个月就 退学了，但之后仍作为旁听生混了

18

个

月后才最终离开。我为什么要退学呢

?

it

started

before

i

was

born.

my

biological

mother

was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she

decided

to

put

me

up

for

adoption.

she

felt

very

strongly

that

i

should

be

adopted

by

college

graduates,

so

everything

was

all

set

for

me

to

be

adopted

at

birth

by

a

lawyer

and

his

wife.

except

that

when

i

popped

out

they

decided

at

the

last

minute

that

they

really

wanted

a girl. so my parents, who were on a waiting list, got

a call in the middle of the night asking:

unexpected baby boy; do you want him?

course.

mother had never graduated from college and that my

father

had

never

graduated

from

high

school.

she

refused to sign the final adoption papers. she only

relented a few months later when my parents promised

that i would someday go to college.

故事要从我出生之前开始说起。我的生母是一名年轻的

未婚妈妈，当时她还是一所大学的在读研究生，于是决定把

我送给其他 人收养。她坚持我应该被一对念过大学的夫妇收

养，所以在我出生的时候，她已经为我被 一个律师和他的太

太收养做好了所有的准备。但在最后一刻，这对夫妇改了主

是我的养父母， 在一天午夜接到了一通电话：

“

有一 个不请

自来的男婴，你们想收养吗

?

”

他们回答：

“

当然想。

”

事

后，我的生母才发现我的养母根本就没有从大学毕业，而我

的 养父甚至连高中都没有毕业，所以她拒绝签署最后的收养

文件，直到几个月后，我的养父 母保证会把我送到大学，她

的态度才有所转变。

and

17

years

later

i

did

go

to

college.

but

i

naively

chose

a

college

that

was

almost

as

expensive

as

stanford,

and

all

of

my

working- class

parents'

savings

were

being

spent

on

my

college

tuition.

after

six

months,

i

couldn't

see

the

value

in

it.

i

had

no

idea

what

i

wanted

to do with my life and no idea how college was going

to help me figure it out. and here i was spending all

of the money my parents had saved their entire life.

so i decided to drop out and trust that it would all

work

out

ok.

it

was

pretty

scary

at

the

time,

but

looking

back it was one of the best decisions i ever made. the

minute i dropped out i could stop taking the required

classes

that

didn't

interest

me,

and

begin

dropping

in

on the ones that looked interesting.

17

年 之后，我真上了大学。但因为年幼无知，我选择

了一所和斯坦福一样昂贵的大学，

(

笑声

)

我的父母都 是工人

阶级，他们倾其所有资助我的学业。在

6

个月之后，我发现

自己完全不知道这样念下去究竟有什么用。当时，我的人生< /p>

漫无目标，也不知道大学对我能起到什么帮助，为了念书，

还花光 了父母毕生的积蓄，所以我决定退学。我相信车到山

前必有路。当时作这个决定的时候非 常害怕，但现在回头去

看，这是我这一生所做出的最正确的决定之一。

< br>(

笑声

)

从我

< br>退学那一刻起，我就再也不用去上那些我毫无兴趣的必修课

了，我开始旁听那些看 来比较有意思的科目。

it wasn't all romantic. i didn't have a dorm room,

so i slept on the floor in friends' rooms, i returned

coke

bottles

for

the

5

cent;

deposits

to

buy

food

with,

and i would walk the 7 miles across town every sunday

night to get one good meal a week at the hare krishna

temple. i loved it. and much of what i stumbled into

by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to

be priceless later on. let me give you one example:

reed

college

at

that

time

offered

perhaps

the

best

calligraphy

instruction

in

the

country.

throughout

the

campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was

beautifully hand calligraphed. because i had dropped

out

and

didn't

have

to

take

the

normal

classes,

i

decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do

this. i learned about serif and san serif typefaces,

about varying the amount of space between different

letter

combinations,

about

what

makes

great

typography

great.

it

was

beautiful,

historical,

artistically

subtle

in

a

way

that

science

can't

capture,

and

i

found

it fascinating.

这件事情做起来一点都不浪漫。因为没有自己的宿舍，

我只能睡 在朋友房间的地板上

;

可乐瓶的押金是

5

分钱，我

把瓶子还回去好用押金买吃的

;

在每个周日的晚上，我都会

步行

7

英里穿越市区，到

harekrishna

< br>教堂吃一顿大餐，我

喜欢那儿的食物。我跟随好奇心和直觉所做的事情，事后证< /p>

明大多数都是极其珍贵的经验。我举一个例子：那个时候，

里德大 学提供了全美国最好的书法教育。整个校园的每一张

海报，每一个抽屉上的标签，都是漂 亮的手写体。由于已经

退学，不用再去上那些常规的课程，于是我选择了一个书法

班，想学学怎么写出一手漂亮字。在这个班上，我学习了各

种字体，如 何改变不同字体组合之间的字间距，以及如何做

出漂亮的版式。那是一种科学永远无法捕 捉的充满美感、历

史感和艺术感的微妙，我发现这太有意思了。

none

of

this

had

even

a

hope

of

any

practical

application in my life. but ten years later, when we

were designing the first macintosh computer, it all

came back to me. and we designed it all into the mac.

it was the first computer with beautiful typography.

if i had never dropped in on that single course in

college,

the

mac

would

have

never

had

multiple

typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. and since

windows

just

copied

the

mac,

its

likely

that

no

personal

computer would have them. if i had never dropped out,

i

would

have

never

dropped

in

on

this

calligraphy

class,

and personal computers might not have the wonderful

typography that they do. of course it was impossible

to

connect

the

dots

looking

forward

when

i

was

in

college.

but

it

was

very,

very

clear

looking

backwards

ten years later.

当时，我压根儿没想到这些知识会在我的生命中有什么

实

际

运

用