美国名人著名演讲词选(中英文对照)

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) Years he as President: 1861-1865 Party affiliation: Republican Schools: Altogether had about less than one year of formal education Occupations before President: Riverboat captain, postmaster, lawyer Did you know: Issued the Emancipation Proclamation (独立宣言) that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy on January 1, 1863； Led the American Civil War (内战) fighting for the freedom of the salves 提示一：他出生于社会低层，具有勤劳、俭朴、谦虚和诚恳的品格。 提示二：他那敏锐的洞察力和深厚的人道主义童识，使他成为美国历史上最伟大的总统。提示三：善于总结经验的总统赢得了历史学家们最高的评价。亚伯拉罕林肯无疑是这方面的佼佼者。葛底斯堡战役，是美国内战最艰苦卓绝的战役，该役最后以南军被迫撤退，北军胜利告终，双方伤亡人数共达数万。这是南北战争的转折点。林肯总统1863年11月在葛底斯堡国家公墓落成典礼发表了著名的葛底斯堡演说。 英文The Gettysburg Address Delivered onNovember 19, 1863Read by Jeff DanielFour score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, 1)conceived in Liberty, and 2)dedicated to the 3)proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long 4)endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a 5)portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives to that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate-we can not 6)consecrate we can not 7)hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or 8)detract.The world will little note, nor long re-member what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work, which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under 6od, shall have a new birth of free-dom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not 9)perish from the earth.中文葛底斯堡演说发表于1863年11月19日87年前，我们的先辈们在这个大陆上创立了一个新国家，它孕育于自由之中，奉行一切人生来平等的原则。现在我们正在进行一场伟大的内战，以考验这个国家，或者任何一个孕育于自由和奉行上述原则的国家是否能够长久存在下去。我们在这场战争中的一个伟大战场上集会。烈士们为使这个国家能够生存下去而献出了自己的生命，我们来到这里，是要把这个战场的一部分奉献给他们作为最后安息之所。我们这样做是完全应该而且是非常恰当的。但是，从更广泛的意义上来说，对这块土地，我们不能够奉献，不能够圣化，不能够神化。那些曾在这里战斗过的勇士们，活着的和去世的，已经把这块土地圣化了，这远不是我们微薄的力量所能增减的。我们今天在这里所说的话，全世界不大会注意，也不会长久地记住，但勇士们在这里所做过的事，全世界却永远不会忘记。毋宁说，倒是我们这些还活着的人，应该在这里把自己奉献于勇士们曾在这为之奋斗、努力推进、但尚未完成的事业，倒是我们应该在这里把自己奉献于仍然留在我们面前的伟大任务-我们要从这些光荣的死者身上汲取更多的献身精神，来完成他们已经完全彻底为之献身的事业；我们要在这里下定最大的决心，不让这些烈士的鲜血自流；我们要使国家在上帝福佑下得到自由的新生；要使这个民有、民治、民享的政府永世长存。解释1) conceive V. 构思，怀孕 2) dedicate to 献身于 3) proposition n. 主张，建议4) endure, 耐久，忍耐 5) portion n, 一部分6) consecrate v. 献给 7) hallow v. 使. 神圣 8) detract v. 转移 9) perish v. 毁灭简评：1Four score and seven years ago，远比eighty-seven years ago来得更有份量，更加凝重。score与ago在音韵上也更耐琢磨。 2dedicate，consecrate，hallow三个动词的连续，恰当的选用：排比的句式，一气呵成：接连两个it is for us把强调的对象转移到现在活着的人。 3 全文的最后一个长句包含着四个由that引导同位语从句，具体说明了the great task remaining before us的是什么。Franklin D. Roosevelt 富兰克林罗斯福 1933.3.4. 演讲者简介：罗斯福在1933年成为总统当时美国正陷于世界性的经济危机之中。罗斯福以他的能力为人民创造就业机会并带去援助。罗斯福的许多施政观点至今仍是美国治国方针的一部分。 President Hoover, Mister Chief Justice, my friends:This is a day of national consecration, and I am certain that on this day, my fellow Americans expect that on my induction in the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing the conditions facing our country today. This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So first of all, let me express my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself-nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves, which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.In such a spirit on my part and on yours, we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen, our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce, and the savings of many years and thousands of families are gone. More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equal and great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.And yet, our distress comes from no failure of substance, we are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered, because they believed and were not afraid, we have so much to be thankful for. Nature surrounds us with her bounty, and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily, this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankinds goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.True, they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the patten of an outworn tradition. Faced by a failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which they induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortation, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They only know the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision, the people perish.Yes, the money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. A measure of that restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social value, more noble than mere monetary profits.Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money, it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative efforts, the joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days, my friends, will be worth all they cost us, if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered on to, but to minister to ourselves, to our fellow men.Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of a false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profits, and there must be an end to our conduct in banking and in business, which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrong-doing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of our obligation, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This nation is asking for action, and action now.Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we take it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our great natural resources.Hand in hand with that, we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution in an effort to provide better use of the land for those best fitted for the land.Yes the task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the value of the agricultural product and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically, the tragedy of the growing losses through fore closures of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the federal, the state, and the local government act forthwith on the demands that their costs be drastically reduce. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, unequal. It can be helped by national planning for, and supervision of all forms of transportation, and of communications, and other utilities that have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped by merely talking about it. We must act, we must act quickly.And finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work, we require two safeguards against the return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other peoples money; and there must be provisions for an adequate but sound currency.These, my friends, are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session, detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the 48 states.Through this program of action, we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order, and making income balance outflow. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration upon the inter-dependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States of America a recognition of the old and the permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery, it is the immediate way, it is the strongest assurance that recovery will endure.In the field of world policy, I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor. The neighbor who resolutely respects himself, and because he does so, respects the rights of others. The neighbor who respects his obligation, and respects the sanctity of his agreement, in and with, a world of neighbor.If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize what we have never realized before, our inter-dependence on each other, that we cannot merely take, but we must give as well. That if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army, willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline, no progress can be made, no leadership becomes effective. We are all ready and willing to submit our lives and our property to such discipline because it makes possible a leadership which aims at the larger good. This, I propose to offer, we are going to larger purposes, bind upon us, bind upon us all, as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty, hitherto evoked only in times of armed strife. With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly, the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.Action in this image, action to this end, is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from my ancestors. Our constitution is so simple, so practical, that it is possible always, to meet extraordinary needs, by changes in emphasis and arrangements without loss of a central form, that is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has ever seen. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.And it is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority will be fully equal, fully adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelay action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity, in the clearest consciousness of seeking all and precious moral values, with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike, we aim at the assurance of a rounded, a permanent national life.We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need, they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline, and direction under leadership, they have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift, I take it.In this dedication, in this dedication of a nation, we humbly ask the blessings of God, may He protect each and every one of us, may He guide me in the days to come.肯尼迪就职演讲 （约翰肯尼迪）1961.1.20.演讲者简介：约翰肯尼迪是一位战争英雄，普利策奖获得者，五十年代大部分时间时的参议员。1960年11月，年仅43岁的他成为美国历史上由选举产生的最年轻的总统。1963年11月22日他在德克萨斯州的达拉斯遇刺身亡，是美国历史上第四位死于暗杀者的子弹的总统。 We observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom. Symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning, signifying renewal, as well as change. For I have sworn before you, and almighty God, the same solemn oath our forbears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.The world is very different now, for man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life. And yet, the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forbears fought are still at issue around the globe. The belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.We dare no forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth, from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage and unwilling to witness, or permit, the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today, at home and around the world.Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet and hardship, support any friend, oppose and foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.This much we pledge and more.To those old allies, whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United there is little we cannot do, in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do. For we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split us asunder.To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our words that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view, but we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom, and to remember that in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe, struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required, not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge, to convert our good words into good deeds, in a new alliance for progress to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last and best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support to prevent it from becoming merely a form for invective, to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak, and to enlarge the area in which its written and run.Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge, but a request ,that both sides begin a new quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.We dare not tempt them with weakness, for only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt, can we be certain beyond doubt, that they will never be employed.But neither can two great and powerful groups of nation take comfort from our present course, both sides over-burdened by the cost of modern weapons,