Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience — Page 11

在某些圈子里，有些东西确实是生活必需品——那些最无助、最病弱的人所需要的——而在另一些圈子里，这些东西不过是奢侈品，在还有一些圈子里，这些东西则完全不为人知。

Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, the most helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuries merely, and in others still are entirely unknown.

在某些人看来，人类生活的整片土地似乎已被他们的前人走遍，无论是高峰还是山谷，一切都已被关照到了。

The whole ground of human life seems to some to have been gone over by their predecessors, both the heights and the valleys, and all things to have been cared for.

据伊夫林所言，"睿智的所罗门为树木之间的距离制定了法规；罗马裁判官也裁定，你可以进入邻居的土地多少次，以拾取落在其上的橡子而不构成侵入，以及其中多少份额归属于那位邻居。"

According to Evelyn, "the wise Solomon prescribed ordinances for the very distances of trees; and the Roman prætors have decided how often you may go into your neighbor's land to gather the acorns which fall on it without trespass, and what share belongs to that neighbor."

希波克拉底甚至留下了如何修剪指甲的指导：即与指尖齐平，不长不短。

Hippocrates has even left directions how we should cut our nails; that is, even with the ends of the fingers, neither shorter nor longer.

毫无疑问，那种自以为已将生活的多样与欢乐消耗殆尽的厌倦与无聊，与亚当同样古老。

Undoubtedly the very tedium and ennui which presume to have exhausted the variety and the joys of life are as old as Adam.

但人的潜能从未被丈量过；我们也不应以任何先例来判断他能做什么，因为被尝试过的实在太少了。

But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried.

无论你迄今经历了怎样的失败，"我的孩子，不要悲伤，因为谁能断言你有哪些事情尚未完成？"

Whatever have been thy failures hitherto, "be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou hast left undone?"

我们可以用千百种简单的测试来衡量我们的生活；例如，同一个太阳既使我的豆子成熟，也同时照耀着与我们相似的众多星球。

We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for instance, that the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours.

如果我曾记住这一点，它本可以让我避免一些错误。

If I had remembered this it would have prevented some mistakes.