现代文明改善了我们的居处,却未能同样改善我们自己。While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them.
财富就是充分体验生活所有方面的能力。Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
真理和玫瑰都有刺。Truths and roses have thorns about them.
人生没有价值,除非你自己给它价值;幸福无处寻觅,除非你自己把它带来。There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.
没有人比把一生的多半时光都消耗在挣饭碗上的人更可悲的了。There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.
心永远是经验不足的。The heart is forever inexperienced.
消遣花费少的人就是富人。That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.
为什么我们死心塌地地要成功,在这么一个让人绝望的社会中?如果一个人没有赶上同侪的步伐,那可能是因为他听到了一种不同的鼓声。Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
在我们身后的,与在我们前方的,比起在我们心里的,都是微不足道的。What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
偶尔病一场是健康之道。'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.
要想成功,我们只能用理智走一小段路,然后就必须跳入黑暗。We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.
成功通常都赐予忙得顾不上寻找它的人。Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
对一个哲学家,所有所谓的新闻都是流言蜚语,而写新闻和看新闻的人是茶足无事的老妇。To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.
1862年春天,梭罗临死时,朋友问:“你在神那里找到平安了吗?”梭罗回答:“我们从未吵过架。”朋友再问:“你准备好来世了吗?”梭罗回答:“一世一世地过吧。”As he declined into death in the spring months of 1862, just as nature was renewing herself around him, he expressed no regrets for the life he had lived. To the deathbed question, “Have you made your peace with God?” he allegedly replied, “We never quarreled.” “Are you ready for the next world?” another acquaintance asked. Thoreau’s response was: “One world at a time.”
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关于梭罗的生平,见爱默生散文名篇《梭罗》:
http://blog.wenxuecity.com/blogview.php?date=200708&postID=15326
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