Steve Jobs 斯坦福大学演讲稿子中英文对照

The commencement speech Steve Jobs gave at Stanford

University in 2005

Thank you. I’m honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.

谢谢。今天来参加世上最好大学之一的毕业典礼让我感到荣幸。老实说，我大学从未毕业而现在是我离大学毕业最近的时刻。

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.

今天我想告诉你我生命的 3 个故事。就这样。没有什么。只有 3 个故事。第一个故事是关于把点连接起来。

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, “We’ve got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?”They said, “Of course.”My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.

待在里德学院 6 个月后我即辍学，但仍然于课堂旁听且待了约18 个月后才真正退学。所以我为什么辍学？这从我还未出生即开始。我的亲生母亲是个年轻、未婚的研究所学生，而她决定让我被领养。她非常坚信我应被大学毕业生所领养，所以一切都已准备好让我一出生即被一位律师及他的太太所领养，只是当我蹦出时，他们在最后一分钟决定他们真正想要的是女孩。所以我的父母，他们在等候名单上，在半夜接到一通电话问说：「我们有一个突然出现的男婴儿，你们想要他吗？」他们说：「当然。」我的亲生母亲后来发现我的母亲大学从未毕业而我的父亲高中从未毕业。她拒绝签署最后的领养文件。几个月后她终于接受，当我父母承诺我将会上大学后。

This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I na?vely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

这是我生命的开始。而17 年过后，我真的上了大学，但我天真的选了一个几乎与史丹佛一样贵的学院，而我劳动阶级父母所有的积蓄都花费在我的大学学费上。6 个月后，我无法看见它的价值。我不知道我人生要做什么，也不知道大学将如何帮助我想出，而我在这里，花费我父母毕生所存下的钱。所以我辍学并相信一切事情都将顺利解决。这在当时非常的可怕，但回顾过去，这是我做过最好的决定之一。我辍学的那一分起，我可以不用上那些我不感兴趣的必修课程，并开始旁听一些看起来有趣许多的课程。

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.

并非一切都是美好的。我没有宿舍，所以我睡在朋友宿舍房间的地板。我退还可口可乐瓶子来换得五分钱的押金来购买食物，而每个星期天晚上我会走7 英哩的路程穿过城镇来到哈瑞奎师那神庙吃每星期的一顿好餐。我超爱它的！而我因跟随好奇及直觉所涉足的的大部分事情后来都证明是无价的。让我给你一个例子。

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

里德学院在当时提供全国或许最好的文字艺术课程。整个校园内，每一个海报、每个抽屉上的每一个标记都是用手美丽的刻画出来。因为我已辍学且不必选修一般的课程，我决定上一堂文字艺术课程来学习文字艺术。我学到衬线及无衬线字体、改变不同字母组合间的空间、是什么造就优良的排版。它是美丽的、俱历史意义的、且艺术上微妙而致科学无法描述，而它使我着迷。

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.

这没有一样有任何希望会在我生命里被实际运用。但十年后当我们在设计第一台苹果计算机时，它全部都回来了，而我们将它全部都设计在苹果计算机里。它是第一个有美丽版面设计的计算机。如果我从未在大学里旁听那一堂课，苹果计算机绝不会有几种不同字体，或间隔均称的字型，而由于微软只是复制苹果，或许没有个人计算机会有它们。

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

如果我从未辍学，我就不会旁听那堂文字艺术课程，而个人计算机可能就不会有它们美丽的版面设计。

Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference. 当然，当我在大学往前看时，把点连接起来是不可能的，但十年后往后看它是非常，非常清楚的。再提一次，往前看时你无法把点连起来。只有往后看时你才能连接它们，所以你必需相信点将在你的未来以某种方式连接。你必需相信某些事情–你的直觉、命运、人生、因缘、不管是什么–因为相信点将在未来的路上连接起来将带给你追随内心声音的信心，即便它引领你离开已被踏平的步道，而那将造就所有的不同。

My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents’garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had

grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We’d just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I’d just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I’d been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

我的第二个故事是有关爱及失去。我是幸运的，我在年轻时就发现我喜爱做什么。我20 岁时沃兹与我在我父母的车库开始了苹果计算机。我们努力工作而在10 年内，苹果已从车库内的只有我们两个人成长至员工超过4000 人，价值20 亿的公司。我们才刚推出我们最好的发明，苹果计算机，在一年之前，而我才刚30 岁，然后我被解僱了。你如何被自己所创立的公司解僱？这个…当苹果成长时，我们僱用了一个我觉得非常有才能的人与我一起经营公司，而头一年前后，事情进展得不错。但之后我们对未来的愿景开始产生分歧，而最后我们有了争吵。当我们争吵时，我们的董事会支持他，所以30 岁时，我被赶出了，且非常公开的被赶出。我整个成人人生的重心已经不在，而这是令人极为难过的。我有几个月真的不知道要做什么。我觉得我让前一代的企业家失望，当接力棒传给我时我让它掉了下去。我与大卫?帕卡德(HP 创立人) 及鲍勃?诺伊斯(Intel 创立人) 见面并试图因把事情搞得如此糟而道歉。我是一个非常公开的失败而我甚至想过逃离硅谷。但我开始慢慢明了某些事情。我仍然喜爱我所做的事。在苹果情势的转折并没有改变这个事实的一点点。我被拒绝了但我仍在恋爱中。所以我决定从新开始。

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create

the world’s first computer-animated feature film, “Toy Story,”and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

我当时不知道，但被苹果解僱可能是发生于我身上最好的事情。因成功所带来的沉重感被重当新手的轻盈感所取代，对每件事皆较为不确定。它释放我进入我生命最俱创造力的其中一个时期。在接下来的五年，我成立了一家名为NeXT 的公司，另一家名为Pixar (皮克斯动画) 的公司，并爱上一位很棒的女人，她后来成为我的太太。Pixar 后来创造了世界第一部计算机动画电影「玩具总动员」，且是现在全世界最成功的动画电影公司。

In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.

在一个令人惊奇的事件转折里，苹果买下了NeXT，而我回到了苹果，而我们在NeXT 所发展的科技是苹果目前从新复兴的核心，而劳伦与我共同拥有一个很棒的家庭。

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life’s going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking, and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don’t settle.

我非常确定这没有一样会发生，如果我没有被苹果解僱。那是尝起来极差的药但我猜病人需要它。有时生命会用砖块打你的头。不要失去信念。我深信唯一使我继续向前的是我喜爱我所做的事。你必需找到你喜爱的，而这道理适用于工作如同适用于你的爱人一样。你的工作将占你生活的一大部份，而唯一感到真正满足的方法是做你相信是卓越的工作，而唯一做卓越工作的方法是喜爱你所做的事。如果你还未找到，继续找，不要妥协。如同所有与心相关的事情，当你找到时你会知道，就像任何良好的关系，一年年过后它只会愈来愈好。所以继续寻找，不要妥协。

My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.”It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in

the mirror every morning and asked myself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”And whenever the answer has been “no”for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important thing I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

我的第三个故事是关于死亡。当我17 岁时，我看到一句话大概是：「如果你过每一天有如那是你的最后一天，某一天你将肯定是对的。」它使我印象深刻，而自那时开始，在过去的33 年，我每天早上看着镜子并问自己：「如果今天是我生命的最后一天，我会想做我今天即将要做的事吗？」而每当答案连续很多天是「不」，我便知道我需做些改变。记住我将马上死亡是我所遇过最重要的东西来帮助我在人生里做重大决择，因为几乎所有的事情–所有外在的期待、所有的自尊、所有对困窘及失败的害怕–这些事情在死亡面前只会自动消失，仅留下真正重要的。记住你将死去是我所知道最好的方法来让你避开你有东西会失去这个想法之陷阱。你已不受保护，没有理由不去追随你的内心。

About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors’code for “prepare to die.”It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

大约一年前，我被诊断有癌症。我早上7:30 做了扫描，而在我胰藏上它清楚的显示一个肿瘤。我当时连胰脏是什么都不知道。医生们告诉我这几乎确定是一种治不好的癌症，而我应预期自己将活不超过 3 到 6 个月。我的医生建议我回家并把我的事安排好，而那是医生「准备死亡」的代语。它意味试图把你原本以为你有接十年要告诉你孩子的所有事情，只在几个月内完成。它意味确定每件事都准备妥当好让你的家人将尽可能的容易度过。它意味说你的道别。

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor

started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.

我面对那个诊断一整天，那天晚上我有个切面检查，他们把一个内腔镜插入我的喉咙，通过我的胃进入我的肠子，把一根针放入我的胰脏并从肿瘤取出一些细胞。我当时被麻醉但我的太太，她当时在那，告诉我当他们在显微镜上看那些细胞时，医生开始哭了，因为它被发现是一种非常罕见可经由手术治愈的胰脏癌。我动了手术，而很感谢的，我现在很好。

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don’t want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’opinions drown out your own inner voice, and most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

那是我面临死亡过最近的时刻，而我希望在接下的几十年里那也会是我所遇过最近的。体验它过后，比死亡只是一个有用但纯綷理智的关念，我现在可以更确定的一点跟你说。没有人想要死，即便想要去天堂的人也不想经由死来到达那里，然而，死亡是我们所有人共同的宿命。没有人曾经逃脱。而也应该就是如此，因为死亡非常可能是生命单一最好的发明。它是生命的改变剂，它把旧的清掉好为新的腾出空间。现在，你们是新的。但有一天，离现在不会太久，你将逐渐成为老的并被清掉。抱歉如此的戏剧化，但它是相当真实的。你的时间是有限的，所以不要浪费它于过别人的生活。不要被教条给困住，也就是活于别人思考的结果中。不要让别人意见的噪音淹没了你自己内心的声音，而最重要的，要有勇气追随你的内心及直觉。它们因某原因已经知道你真正想成为什么。其它的事情皆是次要的。

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. It

was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”It was their farewell message as they signed off. “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”It was their farewell message as they signed off. And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

在我年青时，当时有一个很棒的出版名为「完全地球编目」，那是我那个年代其中一本权威书本。它是由一位离门洛帕克这里不远，名为斯图阿特?布安德的老兄所创立，他诗人般的手法使它更为生动。这是在60 年代末期，在个人计算机及桌上排版之前，所以它全是由打字机、剪刀、及拍立得相机所做。它象是Google 出现前35 年的Google 平装书。它是有理想的，充斥着简洁的工具和伟大的想法。斯图阿特及他的团队发行几期的「完全地球的编目」，然后当它已走完全程，他们发放了最后一期。那是70 年代中期，而我是在你们的年纪。他们最后一期的封底上是一张早晨乡村道路的照片，你若够冒险可能会发现自己在上面搭便车的那种道路。下面的文字是：「保持飢渴，保持傻劲。」这是他们结语的告别讯息。我一直都期望自己能够如此，而现在，在你们毕业而重头开始时，我期望你们也能如此。保持飢渴，保持傻劲。

Thank you all, very much.

非常谢谢各位。