爱因斯坦的《what I believe?》

 The  most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.     Albert Einstein, What I Believe, 1930 

  这里提到的 Albert Einstein, 是不是《相对论》的作者 爱因思坦,应该是,因为他是科学巨人。 What  I Believe. 我想应该他发表的一片论文吧,注意,还有1930年,对历史不感兴趣,1930年,中国发生了什么,我也不知道,更何况国外的科学界呢?唉,真是井底之娃,孤陋寡闻呀!听说百度上什么都可以查到。来吧查一查,万一还发现点什么呢?看一看,都是专业的东西,还是不看的好,太深奥,看不懂。 

  What I Believe ? 还真能查到! 比 Albert Einstein 的简介强,来粘贴过来看看吧!看看伟人的《What  I Believe》 是什么?

  

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose be knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people-first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men,living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. I am strongly drawn to a frugal life and am often oppressively aware that I am engrossing an undue amount of the labor of my fellow-men. I regard class distinctions as unjustified and, in the last resort, based on force. I also believe that a simple and unassuming life is good for everybody, physically and mentally. 

I do not at all believe in human freedom in the philosophical sense. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, "A man can do what he wants,but not want what he wants," has been a very real inspiration to me since my youth; it has been a continual consolation in the face of life's hardships, my own and others', and an unfailing well-spring of tolerance. This realization mercifully mitigates the easily paralyzing sense of responsibility and prevents us from taking ourselves and other people all too seriously; it is conducive to a view of life which, in particular, gives humor its due. 

My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a "lone traveler" and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friend, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude-feelings which increase with the years. One becomes sharply aware, but without regret,of the limits of mutual understanding and consonance with other people. No doubt, such a person loses some of his innocence and unconcern; on the other hand, he is largely independent, of the opinions, habits, and judgments of his fellows and avoids the temptation to build his inner equilibrium upon such insecure foundations. 

My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-being, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that it is necessary for the achievement of the objective of an organization that one man should do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels, For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to systems such as we see in Italy and Russia today. The thing that has brought discredit upon the form of democracy as it exists in Europe today is not to be laid to the door of the democratic principle as such, but to the lack of stability of governments and to the impersonal character of the electoral system. I believe that in this respect the United States of America have found the right way. They have a President powers really to exercise his responsibility. What I value, on the other hand, in the German political system is the more extensive provision that it makes for the individual in case of illness or need. The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system,which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in fours to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; unprotected spinal marrow was all he needed. This plaguespot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them! How vile and despicable seems war to me! I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. My opinion of the human race is high enough that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the peoples not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press. 

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science . Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I can not conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.

   哇塞,这也太多了吧!感情类的东西,很难懂,就借助于Google和有道这两个翻译工具看看吧。
  How strange is the lot of us mortals? 看看这句话,宗教类的书籍,一般都是感性,情感充实,多用感叹语气,一开篇就是How strange...!  和佛经中的“如是我闻”有异曲同工的作用。废话少说,看外文的东西,首先是单词不认识,后来是认识了,无法相互转化。这就要看的是译者的水平了。曾经听说了一个小的故事。说得是一个幼儿园的一位英文师教小孩子说英文:小朋友们跟我读 open the book!  打开书,接着 读open my eye! 打开我的眼睛,不一会,一个聪明的小宝宝,就说,老师不对,不对,应该是睁开眼睛。老师一脸朦!从这个小故事,也可以反映出,对于翻译的精确性!
  mortals. 这个词,还是首次看到,以前真的没有看到过。 mortals,是不是可以看成两个部分呢?前半个是mor,而后半个是tals,后半个在英语中经常可以看到。 mor 可以直接想到的单词有more, 还有morning.好了,mortals 在google 翻译中是凡人的意思。也就是一般人的意思。一般人就是吃喝拉撒,一辈子过正常人的生活,娶妻生子。可是在佛经中中的凡人,就是凡夫,就是不懂得改变命运的人。不懂得转凡成圣。“菩萨畏因,凡夫畏果。”这句话可以在很多的佛经解释书中找到。是不是 Albert Einstein 也有一种想成位圣人的想法。他也不希望成为凡夫。唉!肉眼凡胎的我,怎么能分得清凡与圣呢?《太上感应篇》就是太上老君给讲述的一部转凡成圣的书。可是就像毛主席所说:“好事,做一容易,难得,是做一辈子的好事”。所以,所有的事情难得就是坚持,就是恒心。这句话可以翻译作:“我很好奇为什么我们中大多数人是凡夫呢?”
  Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose be knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. 瞧,这句话是不是很长!也很饶口,就有一个不认识的词汇. sojourn 这个词看起来很普通,so + journ 这两个部分组成。可是,头疼的是,就是不知道是什么意思?查查呗!看看是什么意思。是谁发明的这种表音文字,好难理解呀!我们大中国的象形文字多种,方方正正的,既好看,而大方,可是中国的汉字也是不好学习的一种语言。有没有一种国际上可以通用的逻辑性很强的语言呢?好像没有吧!因为人是一种感性的动物,语言最大的优点,就是感情化的文字!很多文字都是一种感情外露。好了!看看庐山的真面目吧! so + journ = sojourn 是什么意思呢?谷歌一下吧! sojourn 栖止的意思,就是一种安住的状态吧!就像是《金刚经》中的“应何以住?”。 好吧!伟人的言辞。可是我的语言水平有限,好吧!还是按照google的翻译吧,也很有意思,你睢,:“我们每个人都在这里短暂停留;目的何在?却无从知道,尽管有时自以为对此若有所感!”这个翻译很好吧!开篇就谈,人生的意义。和罗素的《我为何而生》的意思应该差不多吧!
  But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people-first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. 噢,太长了,分开看吧!以我有限的能力,我看一下能不能看懂,不借助于翻译工具。先看前半句吧!唉,我也不知道,我为什么要看一些英文的计算机书籍呢?也许,是自视清高,也许是为了给自己充电,不知道了,学点,总比不学强,能多识几个单词也不是什么坏事情吧。好吧,开始看吧!But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people-first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent,先挑选能认识的字,再看不认识的东西。 daily life 日常生活, our own happiness 我们自己的幸福生活,这些个用连字符(-)连接的两个单词是什么意思呢? people-first & well-being 这两个词以前没见过,还有这个wholly也没见过 who+lly 这种构词方法。唉!我为什么天生这么忧怨呢。 好难呀!
  一字一句来吧,还是 But,是一个承前启后的词,是转折,前面两句话合起来的意思是:“我很好奇为什么我们中大多数人是凡夫呢?我们每个人都在这里短暂停留;目的何在?却无从知道,尽管有时自以为对此若有所感!” 嗯,But 后应该对前面问题的反思吧! without这个词,倒是很常见,毫无疑问,或者没有的意思。 reflection是反思的意思,倒是很少见。 Without  deeper reflection,没有进行深入反思, One knows from daily life 一个人的懂得从日常生活。好饶口呀!抄吧!自己的水平真的不可恭围呀!
posted @ 2017-10-20 21:11  ZQXTXK  阅读(2036)  评论(0编辑  收藏  举报