I feel that this award was not made to me as a man but to my work -- a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit not for glory and least of all for profit but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before.
我感觉，这个奖不是授予我这个人，而是授予我的工作，它是对我呕心沥血、毕生从事的人类精神探索的工作的肯定。我的这项工作不为名，更不图利，而是要从人类精神的原始素材里创造出前所未有的东西。
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man but to my work -- a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit not for glory and least of all for profit but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.
我感到这份奖金不是授予我个人而是授予我的工作的授予我一生从事关于人类精神的呕心沥血工作.我从事这项工作不是为名更不是为利而是为了从人的精神原料中创造出一些从前不曾有过的东西.因此这份奖金只不过是托我保管而已.为这份奖金的钱找到与奖金原来的目的和意义相称的用途并不难但我还想为奖金的荣誉找到承受者.我愿意利用这个时刻利用这个举世瞩目的讲坛向那些听到我说话并已献身同一艰苦劳动的男女青年致敬.他们中肯定有人有一天也会站到我现在站着的地方.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about worth the agony and the sweat.
我们今天的悲剧是人们普遍存在一种生理上的恐惧这种恐惧存在已久以致我们能够忍受下去了.现在再没有精神上的问题了.唯一的问题是：我什么时候会被炸得粉身碎骨?正因为如此今天从事写作的男女青年已经忘记了人类内心的冲突.然而只有接触到这种内心冲突才能产生出好作品因为这是唯一值得写值得呕心沥血地去写的.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and teaching himself that forget it forever leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed -- love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value of victories without hope and worst of all without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
他一定要重新认识这些问题.他必须使自己明白世间最可鄙的事情莫过于恐惧.他必须使自己永远忘却恐惧在他的工作室里除了心底古老的真理之外不允许任何别的东西有容身之地.缺了这古老的普遍真理任何小说都只能昙花一现注定要失败;这些真理就是爱情荣誉怜悯自尊同情牺牲等感情.若是他做不到这样他的力气终归白费.他不是写爱情而是写情欲他写的失败是没有人感到失去可贵东西的失败他写的胜利是没有希望甚至没有怜悯或同情的胜利.他不是为有普遍意义的死亡而悲伤所以留不下深刻的痕迹.他不是在写心灵而是在写器官.
Until he relearns these things he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice but because he has a soul a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
在他重新懂得这些之前他写作时就犹如站在人类末日中去观察末日的来临.我不接受人类末日的手法.因为人能传种接代而说人是不朽的这很容易.因为即使最后一次钟声已经消失消失在再也没有潮水冲刷映在落日的余晖里海上最后一块无用的礁石之旁时还会有一个声音那就是人类微弱的不断的说话声这样说也很容易.但是我不能接受这种说法.我相信人类不仅能传种接代而且能战胜一切.人之不朽不是因为在动物中唯独他能永远发出声音而是因为他有灵魂有同情心有牺牲和忍耐精神.
The poet’s the writer's duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man it can be one of the props the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
诗人和作家的责任就是把这些写出来.诗人和作家的特殊光荣就是去鼓舞人的斗志使人记住过去曾经有过的光荣他曾有过的勇气荣誉希望自尊同情怜悯与牺牲精神以达到不朽.诗人的声音不应只是人类的纪录而应是帮助人类永存并得到胜利的支柱和栋梁.
Ladies and Gentlemen
I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening because I have some -- some very sad news for all of you -- Could you lower those signs please? -- I have some very sad news for all of you and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis Tennessee.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day in this difficult time for the United States it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black -- considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible -- you can be filled with bitterness and with hatred and a desire for revenge.
We can move in that direction as a country in greater polarization -- black people amongst blacks and white amongst whites filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort as Martin Luther King did to understand and to comprehend and replace that violence that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land with an effort to understand compassion and love.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with -- be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act against all white people I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed but he was killed by a white man.
But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand to get beyond or go beyond these rather difficult times.
Ladies and Gentlemen I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the union but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.
Nineteen years ago almost to the day we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But we've never lost an astronaut in flight. We've never had a tragedy like this.
And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle. But they the Challenger Seven were aware of the dangers but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith Dick Scobee Judith Resnik Ronald McNair Ellison Onizuka Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe.
We mourn their loss as a nation together.
For the families of the seven we cannot bear as you do the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave and they had that special grace that special spirit that says "Give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy." They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve and they did. They served all of us.
We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They the members of the Challenger crew were pioneers.
And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's take-off. I know it's hard to understand but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future and we'll continue to follow them.