乔布斯演讲原文链接
I am honored to be with you today for your commencement【nous，kəˈmensmənt, 学位授予典礼；毕业典礼】from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college, and 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.
我今天很荣幸能和你们一起参加毕业典礼，斯坦福大学是世界上最好的大学之一。我从来没有从大学中毕业。说实话，今天也许是在我的生命中离大学毕业最近的一天了。今天我想向你们讲述我生活中的三个故事。不是什么大不了的事情，只是三个故事而已。
[1] The first story is about connecting the dots.
第一个故事是关于如何把生命中的点点滴滴串连起来。
I dropped out【phrasal verb，退学，辍学】of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in【adj.，旁听生，非正式的参与】for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out？
我在Reed大学读了六个月之后就退学了，但是在十八个月以后——我真正的作出退学决定之前，我还经常去学校。我为什么要退学呢？
It started before I was born. My biological【adj.，ˌbaɪəˈlɑːdʒɪkl，生物学的】mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption【让…被领养】. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for【为…做好准备】me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out【出生】they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.
故事从我出生的时候讲起。我的亲生母亲是一个年轻的，没有结婚的大学研究生。她决定让别人收养我，她十分想让我被大学毕业生收养。所以在我出生的时候，她已经做好了一切的准备工作，能使得我被一个律师和他的妻子所收养。但是她没有料到，当我出生之后，律师夫妇突然决定他们想要一个女孩。
So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We got an unexpected baby boy; do you want him？” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother found out later that my 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【verb，rɪˈlentɪd，松口，让步】a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college. This was a start in my life.
所以我的生养父母，他们还在我亲生父母的观察名单上，突然在半夜接到了一个电话:“我们现在这儿有一个不小心生出来的男婴，你们想要他吗？”他们回答道:“当然!”但是我亲生母亲随后发现，我的养母从来没有上过大学，我的父亲甚至从没有读过高中。她拒绝签这个收养合同。几个月以后，当我的父母答应她一定要让我上大学的时候，她才勉强同意。这是我人生的开始。
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【工人阶级，工薪阶层】parents’ savings【noun，复数，存款，积蓄】were being spent on my college tuition. After 6 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【弄懂，搞明白】.
在十七岁那年，我真的上了大学。但是我很愚蠢的选择了一个几乎和你们斯坦福大学一样贵的学校，我父母还处于蓝领阶层，他们几乎把所有积蓄都花在了我的学费上面。在六个月后，我已经看不到其中的价值所在。我不知道在我生命中我想要做什么，也不知道大学将如何能帮我弄明白。
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 far more interesting.
而我在这里上学，几乎花光了父母一辈子的积蓄。所以我决定退学，并且相信一切都会好起来的。当时我十分害怕，但是现在回想一下，退学是我做过最正确的决定之一。退学的那一刻起，我终于可以不必去读那些令我提不起丝毫兴趣的课程了，我可以去听那些看起来更有趣的课程。
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【noun，dɪˈpɑːzɪt，押金】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【偶然发现】by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
但是这并不是那么浪漫。我失去了我的宿舍，所以我只能在朋友房间的地板上面睡觉，我去捡5美分的可乐瓶子，仅仅为了填饱肚子，在星期天的晚上，我需要走七英里的路程，穿过这个城市到Hare Krishna寺庙，只是为了能吃上饭——这个星期唯一一顿好一点的饭。但是我喜欢这样。我跟随自己的好奇心和直觉而偶然发现的很多东西后来都被证明是无价的。让我给你们举一个例子吧：
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy【noun，kəˈlɪɡrəfi，书法，美术字】instruction in the country. Throughout the campus, every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed【verb，ˈkælɪgrɑːf，adj.，ˈkælɪgrɑːft，手写体】. 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.
Reed大学在那时提供也许是全美最好的书法教学。在这个大学里面的每个海报，每个抽屉的标签上面全都是漂亮的手写美术字。因为我退学了，没有受到正规的训练，所以我决定去参加这个课程，去学学怎样写出漂亮的美术字。
I learned about serif【ˈserɪf，衬线】and sans serif【无衬线】typefaces【印刷用的 字体】, about varying【verb，ˈveri，改变】the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography【noun，taɪˈpɑːɡrəfi，排版，印刷】great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle【adj.，ˈsʌtl，微妙的，不明显的】in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating【adj.，ˈfæsɪneɪtɪŋ，迷人的】.
我学到了 serif 和 san serif 字体，我学会了怎么样在不同的字母组合之中改变空格的长度，还有怎么样才能作出最棒的印刷式样。那是一种科学永远不能捕捉到的、美丽的、真实的艺术精妙，我发现那实在是太美妙了。
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【adv.，prəˈpɔːrʃənli，成比例的】spaced fonts.
这些都没有希望在我的生活中得到任何实际应用，但是十年之后，当我们在设计第一台 Macintosh 电脑的时候，它一下子浮现了出来。我们将这一切都设计到了 Mac 中。这是第一台具有漂亮字体的计算机。如果我在大学时从未旁听过这一门课程，那么 Mac 就不会拥有多种字体或按比例间隔的字体。
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 10 years later.
如果我当时没有退学，就不会有机会去参加这个我感兴趣的美术字课程，Mac就不会有这么多丰富的字体，以及赏心悦目的字体间距。那么现在个人电脑就不会有现在这么美妙的字型了。如果我没有退学，没有旁听这门书法课，也许所有电脑都不会有如此美丽的印刷体。当然在大学的时候，我不可能预见到它们之间的联系，但是当我十年后回顾这一切的时候，一切都非常明了。
Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut【noun，ɡʌt，直觉，本能】, destiny【命运】, life, karma【noun，ˈkɑːrmə，因果，业力】, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road, it’ll give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn【adj.，ˌwel ˈwɔːrn，破旧的，使用很久的】path and that will make all the difference.
再一次，你无法将未来的点滴连接起来，你只能在回顾过去时将它们连起来。所以你必须相信这些点会在你的未来以某种方式连接起来。你必须相信一些东西 — 你的直觉，命运，生活，业力，不论什么。因为相信这些点会在路的尽头连接起来，这会给你信心去追随你的内心，即使它把你引向已知的路线之外，这将使一切变得不同。
[2] My second story is about love and loss.
我的第二个故事是关于爱和损失的。
I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30.
我非常幸运，因为我在很早的时候就找到了我钟爱的东西。Woz和我在二十岁的时候就在父母的车库里面开创了苹果公司。我们工作得很努力，十年之后，这个公司从那两个车库中的穷光蛋发展到了超过四千名的雇员、价值超过二十亿的大公司。在公司成立的第九年，我们刚刚发布了最好的产品，那就是 Macintosh。我也快要到三十岁了。
And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started？ Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge【verb，daɪˈvɜːrdʒ，分歧】and eventually we had a falling out【noun，激烈的争吵，闹翻】. When we did, our Board of Directors【董事会】sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating【adj.，ˈdevəsteɪtɪŋ，毁灭性的】.
在那一年，我被炒了鱿鱼。你怎么可能被你自己创立的公司炒了鱿鱼呢？ 嗯，在苹果快速成长的时候，我们雇用了一个很有天分的家伙和我一起管理这个公司，在最初的几年，公司运转的很好。但是后来我们对未来的看法发生了分歧，最终我们吵了起来。当争吵不可开交的时候，董事会站在了他的那一边。所以在三十岁的时候，我被炒了。在这么多人的眼皮下我被炒了。在而立之年，我生命的全部支柱离自己远去，这真是毁灭性的打击。
I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs【_noun，ˌɑːntrəprəˈnɜːr，企业家】down - that I had dropped the baton【noun，bəˈtɑːn，接力棒】as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up【把…揉成一团】so badly.
这几个月我真的不知道该做什么。我觉得我让上一代企业家失望了 — 当接力棒传给我时，我把它掉了。我去见了 David Packard 和 Bob Noyce，试图为把事情搞砸了而道歉。
I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me【verb，dɔːn，dawn on sb.，某人开始明白，醒悟】– I still loved what I did. The turn of events【事态的变化或发展】at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over【phrasal verb，重新开始】.
我是一个非常公开的失败者，我甚至想过逃离硅谷。但我慢慢地开始明白一些事情——我仍然热爱我所做的事情。苹果公司的事态发展并没有改变这一点。我被拒绝了，但我仍然爱着。所以我决定重新开始。
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out【phrasal verb，证明是】that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness【noun，ˈhevinəs，沉重感】of being successful was replaced by the lightness【轻松感】of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed【past simple，friːd，释放，使摆脱】me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
当时我并没有意识到，但结果证明，被苹果公司解雇是我一生中可能发生的最好的事情。成功带给我的沉重感被重新成为新手的轻松感所替代，对一切不再那么确定。这让我进入了我一生中最有创造力的时期之一。
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.
在接下来的五年里，我创立了一个名叫NeXT的公司，还有一个叫Pixar的公司，然后和一个后来成为我妻子的优雅女人相识。Pixar 制作了世界上第一个用电脑制作的动画电影——“玩具总动员”，Pixar现在也是世界上最成功的电脑制作工作室。
In a remarkable【adj.，rɪˈmɑːrkəbl，引人注目的】turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance【noun，ˈrenəsɑːns，文艺复兴】. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
事情发生了引人注目的转变，苹果收购了 NeXT，我又回到了苹果，而我们在 NeXT 开发的技术是苹果当前复兴的核心。劳伦和我有一个美好的家庭。
I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful【adj.，ˈɔːfl，很坏的，糟透的】tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life is gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced【adj.，kənˈvɪnst，坚信，深信，确信】that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle【妥协】. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on【时间的 流逝】. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.
我很确定如果我没有被苹果公司解雇，这一切都不会发生。这药味道很糟糕，但我想病人需要它。有时候，生活会给你当头一棒。不要失去信心。我坚信，唯一让我坚持下去的就是我热爱我所做的事情。你必须找到你所爱的。对于你的工作和你的爱人来说都是如此。你的工作将占据你生活的很大一部分，唯一能让你真正满足的，就是去做你认为伟大的工作。而做伟大的工作的唯一方式就是热爱你所做的事情。如果您还没有找到，请继续寻找。不要妥协。就像所有与内心有关的事情一样，当你找到它时你就会知道。而且，就像任何伟大的关系一样，随着时间的推移，这种关系会变得越来越好。所以继续寻找，直到找到为止。不要妥协。
[3] My third story is about death.
我的第三个故事是关于死亡的。
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like【大致是这样】: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me【make an impression on sb.，给某人留下印象】, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today？” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row【连续的，接连不断地】, I know I need to change something.
当我17岁的时候，我读到一句这样的话：”如果你把每一天都当作最后一天去度过，总有一天你会是对的。”这句话给我留下了深刻的印象，自那时起，过去的33年里，我每天早晨照镜子的时候，都会问自己：”如果今天是我生命中的最后一天，我是否愿意去做我今天打算去做的事份？”每当连续太多天都回答“不”时，我就知道我需要改变一些事情。
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment【_noun，ɪmˈbærəsmənt，难堪】or failure - these things just fall away【phrasal verb，（逐渐）消失】in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked【adj.，ˈneɪkɪd，赤裸的】. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
记住我将很快死去，这是我遇到过的最重要的工具，可以帮助我做出人生中的重大选择。因为一切的一切，一切追求，一切荣耀，一切对尴尬或失败的恐惧，这些东西在面对死亡时都会消失，只留下那些真正重要的东西。记住你将会死去，这是我知道的避免陷入认为自己有什么可以失去的思维陷阱的最好方法。你已经一无所有。没有理由不去追随你的心。
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor【noun，ˈtuːmər，肿瘤】on my pancreas【noun，ˈpæŋkriəs，胰，胰腺】. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable【adj.，ɪnˈkjʊrəbl，不可治愈的】, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
大约一年前我被诊断出患有癌症。我早上7:30做了一次扫描，并清楚地看到我的胰腺上有一个肿瘤。我甚至不知道什么是胰腺。医生告诉我这几乎肯定是一种无法治愈的癌症，并且我预计的生命期限不会超过三到六个月。我的医生建议我回家，开始整理自己的事务，这是医生的暗语，意味着准备去死。这意味着尝试在短短几个月内告诉你的孩子你认为在接下来的十年里你会告诉他们的一切。这意味着确保一切事务都处理好，这样对你的家人来说会尽可能的容易。意味着说再见。
I lived with that diagnosis【noun，ˌdaɪəɡˈnəʊsɪs，诊断】all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy【noun，ˈbaɪɑːpsi，活组织检查】, where they stuck【past simple，stʌk，把…插入】an endoscope【noun，ˈendəskəʊp，内窥镜】down my throat【noun，θrəʊt，喉咙】, through my stomach【noun，ˈstʌmək，胃】and into my intestines【noun，ɪnˈtestɪn，肠】, put a needle【noun，ˈniːdl，针】into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated【past simple，sɪˈdeɪt，给…施用镇静剂】, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic【adj.，ˌpæŋkriˈætɪk，胰腺的】cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery【noun，ˈsɜːrdʒəri，外科手术】and I’m fine now.
我整天都生活在那个诊断中。晚些时候我接受了活体组织检查，他们把一个内窥镜插入我的喉咙，穿过我的胃，进入我的肠道，在胰腺插入一根针，从肿瘤中取出一些细胞。我被麻醉了，但我的妻子在那里，她告诉我，当他们在显微镜下观察那些细胞时，医生们开始哭泣，因为那实际上是一种非常罕见的可以通过手术治愈的胰腺癌。我进行了手术，现在我已经康复了。
This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual【noun，ˌɪntəˈlektʃuəl，智力的，脑力的】concept:
那是我最接近死亡的时候，我希望这也是我未来几十年最接近死亡的一次。经历过这一切后，比起死亡是一个有用但纯粹的智力概念时，我现在可以更加确定的对你说：
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic【adj.，drəˈmætɪk，戏剧性】, but it is quite true.
没有人愿意死。即使是想去天堂的人，也不希望通过死亡去那里。然而，死亡是我们所有人共同的终点。没有人能逃脱它。这也理应如此，因为死亡很可能是生命最好的发明。它是生命的改变者。它清除旧的，为新的让路。现在新的是你，但不久的将来，你会慢慢变老，然后被清除。很抱歉我这么戏剧化，但这确实是真的。
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma【noun，ˈdɔːɡmə，教条】- which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out【淹没】your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
人生有限，所以不要把时间浪费在过别人的生活上。不要被教条所困 — 这就是活在别人思考的结果中。不要让别人的意见淹没了你内心的声音。最重要的是，要有勇气追随自己的内心和直觉。他们不知何故已经知道你真正想成为什么。其他一切都是次要的。
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
当我还年轻的时候，有一本令人惊叹的出版物叫做《全球目录》，那是我们这一代人的圣经之一。它是由一位名叫 Stewart Brand 的人在距离这里不远的 Menlo Park 创造的，并且他用他的诗意手法赋予了它生命。那是在20世纪60年代末期，还没有个人计算机和桌面出版，所以全部都是用打字机，剪刀和宝丽来相机制作的。它有点像纸质版的谷歌，比谷歌出现早了35年：它是理想主义的，充满了整洁的工具和伟大的想法。
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
斯图尔特团队出版了几期的全球目录。当它后来要停刊的时候，他们出来最后一版。那是七十年代中期，我就像你们这么大。杂志最后一期的封底上，是一幅清晨乡村公路的照片。是那种搭车旅行玩冒险时会遇到的村路，照片下面有这样一段话：求知若渴，虚心若愚。这是他们停刊的告别语。求知若渴，虚心若愚。我一直以此激励自己。在你们即将毕业开始崭新旅程的时刻，我希望你们也能做到：
求知若渴，虚心若愚。
谢谢大家！