人性与文明
Liberty and Knowledge—John Adams
自由与知识——约翰·亚当斯
Of Harmony—Thomas Brown
论和谐——托马斯·布朗
The Organ—Washington Irving
管风琴——华盛顿·欧文
Broadcast on Japanese Surrender—Harry S. Truman
日本投降日的广播演说——哈里·S·杜鲁门
Civilization and History—C. E. M. Joad
文明与历史——C.E.M. 乔德
On Accepting the Nobel Prize—William Faulkner
诺贝尔获奖致辞——威廉·福克纳
想象的共同体
The Importance of One’s Own Language—John Locke
论本国语的重要——约翰·洛克
The Declaration of Independence—Thomas Jefferson, et al.
独立宣言——托马斯·杰斐逊等
First Inaugural Address—Thomas Jefferson
第一次就职演说——托马斯·杰斐逊
Spirit of the Chinese People—Ku Hungming
中国人的精神——辜鸿铭
相遇异邦
Culture Shock—Kalervo Oberg
文化冲击——卡勒弗·奥伯格
Impressions of America—Oscar Wilde
美国印象——奥斯卡·王尔德
The Problem of China—Bertrand Russell
中国问题——伯特兰·罗素
The Song of the River—W. S. Maugham
河之歌——W·S·毛姆
French and English—G. K. Chesterton
法国人与英国人——G·K·切斯特顿
Grant and Lee—Bruce Catton
格兰特与李将军——布鲁斯·卡顿
浮出历史的地表
A Reply to the American Government—Chief Seattle
给美国政府的答复——西雅图酋长
Civil Disobedience—Henry David Thoreau
论公民的不服从——亨利·戴维·梭罗
On Women’s Right to Vote—Susan B. Anthony
论妇女的选举权——苏珊·B·安东尼
Behold, my friends, the spring is come.—Sitting Bull
看,我的朋友们,春天已经来临——坐牛
I Have a Dream—Martin Luther King, Jr
我有一个梦想——马丁·路德·金
求同何以可能
Farewell Speech—George Washington
告别演说——乔治·华盛顿
Peace in the Atomic Age—Albert Einstein
原子能时代的和平——阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦
Shall We Choose Death?—Bertrand Russell
我们该选择死亡吗?——伯特兰·罗素
Presidential Inaugural Address—John Fitzgerald Kennedy
总统就职演说——约翰·菲茨杰拉德·肯尼迪
At Israel’s Holocaust Memorial—Pope John Paul II
以色列犹太大屠杀纪念馆致辞——约翰·保罗二世
內容試閱:
Liberty and Knowledge
John Adams
内容导读
追求自由是人类社会共有的文化主题,而对自由的定义和划界则成了不同文明的独特标记。这被约翰·亚当斯称为能够限制强权的“一般知识”和“ 觉察能力”。主权在民,所以公共权力的掌控者必须代表人民的利益,否则便丧失了合法性。
英文正文
Wherever a general knowledge and sensibility have prevailed among the people, arbitrary government and every kind of oppression have lessened and disappeared in proportion. Man has certainly an exalted soul; and the same principle in human nature—that aspiring, noble principle
founded in benevolence, and cherished by knowledge; I mean the love of power, which has been so often the cause of slavery—has, whenever freedom has existed, been the cause of freedom. If it is this principle that has always prompted the princes and nobles of the earth by every species of fraud and violence to shake off all the limitations of their power, it is the same that has always stimulated the common people to aspire at independency, and to endeavor at confining the power of the great within the limits of equity and reason.
…
Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees for the people; and if the cause, the interest and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute abler and better agents, attorneys, and trustees and the preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men the country. It is even of more consequence to the rich themselves, and to their posterity.