2015年5月23日星期六

Good Quotes —— Lee Kuan Yew at 80 (1)

You begin your journey not knowing where it will take you. You have plans, you have dreams, but every now and again you have to take uncharted roads, face impassable mountains, cross treacherous rivers, be blocked by landslides and earthquakes…So you cannot say that you planned your whole life.
我們踏上人生旅途時,前途充滿着未知數。我們有的是計劃、夢想,但是往往得走迂迴曲折的道路,對着難越的關山興嘆,搶渡險惡的急流,或被土崩和地震阻擋征途……換言之,人的一生是無法全盤計劃好的。
[Life]’s a parlour game, you know. At each stage, it is a crossroads. You take the road, you have changed direction, you proceed. There is no turning back.
人生有如一場要不斷作出抉擇的遊戲。每到一個階段,就必須作出抉擇。選擇了一條道路,改變了方向,就必須向前走,不能再回頭。
If you want people to stand up and take note of what you say, then it is in a moment of acute pain, or crisis, or anguish that you should stand up to be counted.
如果你要人們認同和重視你的言論,你就必須在大家面對危機,水深火熱的時候挺身而出。
You have got to have the courage to disavow your old beliefs in the light of your personal experience.
我們對人生有了新的領悟後,就應該鼓起勇氣破舊立新。
The day you can’t adjust and change, that day, you begin to shrivel and die…that’s all.
如果有一天,你再也不能適應,再也無法改變了,那就是你枯萎、凋謝的開始……就這麼簡單。
Can anybody really see himself for what he is? It’s a very subjective thing.
世人真有自知之明嗎?人人對自己的看法往往很主觀。
I don’t think I want to model my life on the Anglo-Saxon. I want to catch up with his material and scientific progress. I want to pick up and emulate some of his methods of organizing society, which have helped this progress. But I am not accepting as superior his culture or his way of life.

我不想模仿西方人。但是我希望趕上他們的物質和科學成就,也希望吸取和學習他們組織社會的方法,因為這會帶來進步。不過我不能接受他們的文化或生活方式比我們優越的說法