每天分享一篇中英雙語閱讀，對英語口語的練習很有幫助，也是積累英語考試中寫作，翻譯素材的好資料，加油吧!

The Strenuous Life

艱辛的人生

A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as an individual.

一種怠惰安逸的生活，一種僅僅是由于缺少追尋偉大事物的渴望或能力而導致的悠閑生活，這對國家與個人都是毫無價值的。

We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious efforts, the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life. It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort. Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past. A man can be freed from the necessity of work only by the fact that he or his fathers before him have worked to good purpose. If the freedom thus purchased is used aright, and the man still does actual work, though of a different kind, whether as a writer or a general, whether in the field of politics or in the field of exploration and adventure, he shows he deserves his good fortune.

我們不欣賞那種怯懦安逸的人。我們欽佩那種表現出奮力向上的人，那種永不屈待鄰人，能隨時幫助朋友，但是也具有那些剛健的品質，足以在現實生活的嚴酷斗爭中獲取勝利的人。失敗是難以忍受的，但更為糟糕的是從來不去努力爭取成功。 在人的這一生中，任何的收獲都要通過努力去得到。目前不作任何的努力，只不過意味著在過去有過努力的積儲。一個人不必工作，除非他或其先輩們曾經努力工作過，并取得了豐厚的收獲。假如他能夠把獲得的這種自由加以正確地運用，仍然做些實際的工作，盡管那些工作是屬于另一類的，不論是做一名作家還是將軍，不論是在政界還是在探險和冒險方面做些事情，都表明了他沒有辜負自己的好運。

But if he treats this period of freedom from the need of actual labor as a period, not of preparation, but of mere enjoyment, even though perhaps not of vicious enjoyment, he shows that he is simply a cumberer on the earth’s surface; and he surely unfits himself to hold his own place with his fellows, if the need to do so should again arise. A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world.

但是，假如他未將這段需要從事實際工作的自由時期用于準備，而僅僅是用于享樂(即使他所從事的或許并非不良的享樂)，那也就表明了他只是地球表面上的一個贅疣;而且如果那種需要再度出現的話，他肯定無法在同僚之中維持自己的地位。 一種純粹安逸的生活終究并不是一種令人很滿意的生活，而且，最主要的是，過那種生活的人，最終肯定沒有能力擔當起世上之重任。

As it is with the individual, so it is with the nation. It is a base untruth to say that happy is the nation that has no history. Thrice happy is the nation that has a glorious history. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

對于個人是如此，對于國家也是這樣。有人說一個沒有歷史的國家是得天獨厚的，這是根本錯誤的。一種得天獨厚的優越感來源于一個國家所具有的光榮歷史。敢于挑戰非比尋常的事物，去贏得光輝的勝利，即使其中摻雜著失敗，那也遠勝于與那些既沒有享受多大快樂也沒有遭受多大痛苦的平庸之輩為伍，因為他們生活在一個既享受不到勝利也不會遭遇挫敗的灰暗的境界中。