名校勵(lì)志英語演講 第119期:21世紀(jì)的挑戰(zhàn)(13)
這些就是220年前美國立國的核心理想。這些理想指引我們跨越美洲大陸，走向世界舞臺(tái)。這些仍然是美國人民今天珍視的理想。
As I said in my press conference with President Jiang, we have an ongoing quest ourselves to live up to those ideals. The people who framed our Constitution understood that we would never achieve perfection. They said that the mission of America would always be "to form a more perfect union"—in other words, that we would never be perfect, but we had to keep trying to do better.
正如我在和江主席舉行的記者招待會(huì)上所說，我們美國人民正在不斷尋求實(shí)現(xiàn)這些理想。美國憲法的制定者了解，我們不可能做到盡善盡美。他們說，美國的使命始終是要“建設(shè)一個(gè)更為完美的聯(lián)邦。”換言之，我們永遠(yuǎn)不可能盡善盡美，但我們必須不斷改進(jìn)。
The darkest moments in our history have come when we abandoned the effort to do better,when we denied freedom to our people because of their race or their religion, because there were new immigrants or because they held unpopular opinions. The best moments in our history have come when we protected the freedom of people who held unpopular opinion, or extended rights enjoyed by the many to the few who had previously been denied them,making, therefore, the promises of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution more than faded words on old parchment.
每當(dāng)我們放棄不斷改進(jìn)的努力，每當(dāng)我們由于種族或宗教原因、由于是新移 民，或者由于有人持不受歡迎的意見，而剝奪我們?nèi)嗣竦淖杂?，我們的歷史就出現(xiàn)最黑暗的時(shí)刻。每當(dāng)我們保護(hù)持不受歡迎的意見者的自由，或者將大多數(shù)人享受的權(quán)利給予以前被剝奪權(quán)利的人們，從而實(shí)踐《獨(dú)立宣言》和《憲法》的諾言，而不是使其成為一紙空文，我們的歷史就出現(xiàn)最光明的時(shí)刻。
