And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had everknown before.

　　同时在这里我也了解到更多关于人类的善良，比我以前想象的要多很多。

　　Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for theirbeliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collectiveaction, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being andsecurity are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and willnever meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling andinspiring experiences of my life.

　　大赦动员成千上万没有因为个人信仰而受到折磨或监禁的人，去为那些遭受这种不幸的人奔走。人类同理心的力量，引发集体行动，拯救生命，解放囚犯。个人的福祉和安全有保证的普通百姓，携手合作，大量挽救那些他们素不相识，也许永远不会见面的人。我用自己微薄的力量参与了这一过程，也获得了更大的启发。

　　Unlike any other creature on this planet, human beings can learn and understand, withouthaving experienced. They can think themselves into other people's places.

　　不同于在这个星球上任何其他的动物，人类可以学习和理解未曾经历过的东西。他们可以将心比心、设身处地的理解他人。

　　Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One mightuse such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

　　当然，这种能力，就像在我虚构的魔法世界里一样，在道德上是中立的。一个人可能会利用这种能力去操纵控制，也有人选择去了解同情。

　　And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortablywithin the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to havebeen born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; theycan close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they canrefuse to know.

　　而很多人选择不去使用他们的想象力。他们选择留在自己舒适的世界里，从来不愿花力气去想想如果生在别处会怎样。他们可以拒绝去听别人的尖叫，看一眼囚禁的笼子;他们可以封闭自己的内心，只要痛苦不触及个人，他们可以拒绝去了解。

　　I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they haveany fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mentalagoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see moremonsters. They are often more afraid.

　　我可能会受到诱惑，去嫉妒那样生活的人。但我不认为他们做的噩梦会比我更少。选择生活在狭窄的空间，可以导致不敢面对开阔的视野，给自己带来恐惧感。我认为不愿展开想像的人会看到更多的怪兽，他们往往更感到更害怕。

　　What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without evercommitting an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

　　更甚的是，那些选择不去同情的人，可能会激活真正的怪兽。因为尽管自己没有犯下罪恶，我们却通过冷漠与之勾结。

　　One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured atthe age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greekauthor Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

　　我18岁开始从古典文学中汲取许多知识，其中之一当时并不完全理解，那就是希腊作家普鲁塔克所说：我们内心获得的，将改变外在的现实。

　　That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. Itexpresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touchother people's lives simply by existing.

　　那是一个惊人的论断，在我们生活的每一天里被无数次证实。它指明我们与外部世界有无法脱离的联系，我们以自身的存在接触着他人的生命。

　　But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives?Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received,give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. Thegreat majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower. The way you vote, theway you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, hasan impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

　　但是，哈佛大学的2008届毕业生们，你们多少人有可能去触及他人的生命?你们的智慧，你们努力工作的能力，以及你们所受到的教育，给予你们独特的地位和责任。甚至你们的国籍也让你们与众不同，你们绝大部份人属于这个世界上唯一的超级大国。你们表决的方式，你们生活的方式，你们抗议的方式，你们给政府带来的压力，具有超乎寻常的影响力。这是你们的特权，也是你们的责任。