专八翻译模拟题英译汉

专八翻译模拟题（英译汉）
第 1 篇
原文：
It seems as if a great deal were attainable in a world where there are so many marriages and decisive battles, and where we all, at certain hours of the day, and with great gusto and dispatch, stow a portion of victuals finally and irretrievably into the bag which contains us.
And it would seem also, on a hasty view, that the attainment of as much as possible was the one goal of man's contentious life. And yet, as regards the spirit, this is but a semblance.
参考译文：
在这充满联姻婚嫁、决战厮杀的世界里，每天特定时刻，我们都欣然而又迅速地把一份食物一去不返地吞入包裹我们的皮囊。

这个世界看上去似乎有很多东西都是可以得到的。

猛然看来，尽可能地获取也成为纷繁人生的唯一目标。

然而，对于精神世界来说，这只不过是表面现象。

第 2 篇
原文：
Picture-taking is a technique both for annexing the objective world and for expressing the singular self. Photographs depict objective realities that already exist, though only the camera can disclose them. And they depict an individual photographer’s temperament, discovering itself through the camera’s cropping of reality. That is, photography has two antithetical ideals: in the first, photography is about the world and the photographer is a mere observer who counts for little; but in the second, photography is the instrument of intrepid, questing subjectivity and the photographer is all.
参考译文：
照相是一种既兼并客观世界，又表达独特自我的技术。

照片描绘业已存在的客观现实，不过只有造相机才能揭示这种客观现实。

照片反映个别摄影者的气质，这种气质是通过照相机剪裁现实而显示出来的。

那就是说，摄影术有两个相互对立的观念：第一，摄影术是反映世界的，摄影者只不过是无足轻重的观察者；第二，摄影术是无畏探索的主观性的手段，摄影者决定一切。

第 3 篇
原文：
It is a strange thing, to note the excess of this passion, and how it braves the nature, and value of things, by this; that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole, is comely in nothing but in love. Neither is it merely in the phrase; for whereas it hath been well said, that the arch-flatterer, with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man`s self; certainly the lover is more. For there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of him self, as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, That it is impossible to love, and to be wise. Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to the party loved;
but to the loved most of all, except the love be reciproque. For it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded, either with the reciproque, or with an inward and secret contempt.
参考译文：
过度的爱情追求，必然会降低人本身的价值。

例如，只有在爱情中，才永远需要那种浮夸诌媚的词令。

而在其他场合，同样的词令只能招人耻笑。

古人有一句名言：“最大的奉承，人总是留给自己的”。

－－只有对情人的奉承要算例外。

因为甚至最骄傲的人，也甘愿在情人面前自轻自贱。

所以古人说得好：“就是神在爱情中也难保持聪明。

”
情人的这种弱点不仅在外人眼中是明显的，就是在被追求者的眼中也会很明显——除非她（他）也在追求他（她）。

所以，爱情的代价就是如此，不能得到回爱，就会得到一种深藏于心的轻蔑，这是一条永真的定律。

第 4 篇
原文: （丰田推出环保汽车）
Toyota and affiliate Hino Motors Ltd. will take part in the development of a new model of a road-rail vehicle originally created by railway operator JR Hokkaido, a Hino spokesman said.
The two auto companies are providing technology and materials to strengthen the front part of the "dual mode vehicle" so that it can carry up to 25 people.
The railway firm is already developing several prototypes of road-rail vehicles and has begun test drives.
The operator, which operates railways in the nation's northern island of Hokkaido, has developed the vehicle as part of its effort to utilize railways now out of service due to a sharp decline in passengers in the region.
The vehicle has eight wheels -- four iron wheels for railways and four rubber tyres for roads -- and is powered by a diesel engine. It is said to burn only one fourth of the fuel of conventional diesel-powered cars.
"Our contribution is expected to be another step toward more practical use of the dual mode vehicle," a Hino spokesman said.
The latest vehicle is expected to be completed by mid-June and will be displayed at a welcome event for this year's Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido in July for which climate change is high on the agenda.
参考译文:
日本一位官员于本周一表示，日本丰田汽车集团及其卡车制造分公司目前已参与研发一款路轨两用的环保机动车。

日野汽车的发言人称，丰田汽车及日野分公司将参与一款新型路轨两用车的研发项目，这款车最初是由日本北海道旅客铁道公司研制出来的。

这两家汽车公司主要提供技术和材料，加强“两用车”的车体前部构造，使其最多能够容纳25人。

北海道旅客铁道公司已经研发出路轨两用车的几款样车，并投入试运行。

北海道旅客铁道公司一直在日本北部岛屿北海道经营铁路运营业务，由于这一地区的铁路因客流量急剧下降而停运，北海道公司采取各种措施利用铁路，研发路轨两用车便是其中之一。

这款柴油驱动的两用车共有八个轮子，分别是四个在铁轨上运行的铁轮胎和四个在陆地上运行的橡胶轮胎。

据说这款车的耗油量仅为传统柴油车的四分之一。

日野公司的发言人表示：“我们将为进一步推进两用车的实际应用做出贡献。

”
这款车预计于六月中旬出厂，并将于7月份在北海道召开的八国集团峰会欢迎仪式上亮相。

今年八国峰会的主要议题是气候变化。

第 5 篇
原文：
The secret of being a saint
Once upon a time there lived in a country a do-gooder. The king was very appreciative of his deeds and decided to honor him as a saint by a decree. On the saint's eightieth birthday, the king was invited to his birthday celebration. He brought with him a painter so as to do a picture of the kindly saint as a paragon for his countrymen.
When the feast is over all the guests were asked to have a look at the picture. To their great surprise, when the picture was shown, what they saw was not a kind but a ruthless and cruel look. The king was very angry at seeing this and ordered his men to beat the painter.
Upon hearing the noise, the saint rushed to the scene to have a look at the picture. After viewing it, the saint knelt down and said, "your majesty, the person in the picture is none other than me." Why?" said the king, dumbfounded. "This has been the very person whom I have never wanted to be."
In this world, there are no naturally born saints; only those who can do self-criticism and self-examination, can become saints.
参考译文：
成为圣者的秘诀
从前，在一个国家里，有一位做了无数善事的善心者。

国王非常欣赏他的善举，便封他为圣者。

有一天，圣者过八十大寿，国王前来庆贺，特别带来一位画家，想通过画家的笔，将这位圣者慈祥的容貌画下来，作为世人的典范。

用完晚餐之后，众多的嘉宾前来观赏这幅慈爱的画。

肖像画家将这幅画像拿出来的时候，所有人大吃一惊。

因为画里的人根本没有慈善的面貌，反而充满暴戾，粗野，邪恶的气息。

国王一看，生气地要人把画家拖出去鞭打。

这时，圣者听到惊呼声，跑了过来，他看到这幅画后，跪倒在地：“国王，这画里的人，才是真实的我啊。

”国王惊诧地问：“为什么？”圣者道：“这就是我一生挣扎着，不想去做的那个人啊。

”
在这世上，没有天生的圣者，惟有能时时刻刻自我反省，自我检视的人，才能成为圣者。

第 6 篇
原文：
Lehman shares dip in spite of earnings surge
Lehman Brothers yesterday reported a 47 per cent jump in second-quarter earnings but its shares fell sharply amid investor fears that volatile markets and rising interest rates could cut into Wall Street's recent run of blockbuster profits
The Wall Street bank said it earned $1bn, or $1.69 a share, in the second quarter, up from $683m, or $1.13 a share, a year earlier. Strong fixed-income trading results offset a sharp drop in debt-underwriting revenue.
参考译文：
雷曼第2 季度收益大增47%
雷曼兄弟（Lehman Brothers）昨日公布，公司第二季度收益大增47%，但其股价却大幅下挫，原因是投资者担心波动较大的市场和不断上升的利率，会中止华尔街投行近来利润大增的趋势。

这家华尔街投行表示，公司第二季度收益为10 亿美元，合每股收益1.69 美元，而上年同期的收益为6.83 亿美元，合每股1.13 美元。

该公司固定收益产品交易业务业绩强劲，抵消了债券承销收入大幅下降的负面影响。

第 7 篇
原文：
Britain Loses Half Of Its Millionaires
Suddenly everyone is talking about disappearing millionaires.
Tuesday there was The Wall Street Journal talking about the vanishing Maryland millionaires. Now comes word that Britain has lost about half its millionaires.
The reason isn't emigration or tax revolts. It is personal finances.
As I have been writing for the past year, the rich have been hammered by this crisis, largely because of the plunge in the value of their investments and real estate. As a result, the millionaire population (especially the lower end) is taking a dive.
参考译文：
英国百万富翁人数减少近半
突然之间，人人都在谈论不断消失的百万富翁们。

周二，《华尔街日报》有篇文章谈到了美国马里兰州百万富翁越来越少。

现在有消息说，英国的百万富翁人数减少了约一半。

这并不是因为富翁们移民或是避税去了，而是个人财务状况出了问题。

正如过去一年中我所写的，富人们在此次危机中遭受了重创，原因主要是他们的投资和房地产的价值锐减。

正因为如此，百万富翁（特别是富翁中的“贫困户”）的人数骤减。

第 8 篇
原文：
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level. Moreover, the exercise of choice is in itself tiresome. Except to people with un-usual initiative it is positively agreeable to be told what to do at each hour of the day, provided the orders are not too unpleasant. Most of the idle rich suffer unspeakable boredom as the price of their freedom from hard work, At times, they may find relief by hunting big game in Africa, or by flying round the world，but the number of such sensations is limited, especially after youth is past. Accordingly the more intelligent rich men work nearly as hard as if they were poor, while rich women for the most part keep themselves busy with innumerable trifles, of whose earthshaking importance they are firmly persuaded.
第 9 篇
第 10 篇
原文：
In a calm sea every man is a pilot.
But all sunshine without shade，all pleasure without pain，is not life at all. Take the lot of the happiest - it is a tangled yarn. Bereavements and blessings，one following another，make us sad and blessed by turns. Even death itself makes life more loving. Men come closest to
their true selves in the sober moments of life，under the shadows of sorrow and loss.
In the affairs of life or of business，it is not intellect that tells so much as character，not brains so much as heart，not genius so much as self-control，patience，and discipline，regulated by judgment.
I have always believed that the man who has begun to live more seriously within begins
to live more simply without. In an age of extravagance and waste，I wish I could show to the world how few the real wants of humanity are.
To regret one's errors to the point of not repeating them is true repentance. There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.
参考译文：
真正的高贵
在风平浪静的大海上，每个人都是领航员。

但只有阳光没有阴影，只有快乐没有痛苦，根本不是真正的生活.就拿最幸福的人来说，他的生活也是一团缠结在一起的乱麻.痛苦与幸福交替出现，使得我们一会悲伤一会高兴. 甚至死亡本身都使得生命更加可爱.在人生清醒的时刻，在悲伤与失落的阴影之下，人们与真实的自我最为接近。

在生活和事业的种种事务之中，性格的作用比智力要大，头脑的作用远不如情感，天资也不如由判断力控制的自制，耐心与修养。

我一直认为，开始在内心更加严肃地生活的人，也会在外在上开始生活得更为朴素，在一个奢侈浪费的年代，我希望能向世人表明，人类真正的需要是如此之少。

真正的悔改，是为自己的错误感到后悔而力求不再重犯，比别人更加优秀并不高贵，真正的高贵是优于过去的自己。

第 11 篇
原文：
Birds and Death
The bird, however hard the frost may be, flies briskly to his customary roosting-place, and, with beak tucked into his wing, falls asleep. He has no apprehensions; only the hot blood grows colder and colder, the pulse feebler as he sleeps, and at midnight, or in the early morning, he drops from his perch---death.
Yesterday he lived and moved, responsive to a thousand external influences, reflecting earth and sky in his small brilliant brain as in a looking-glass; also he had a various language, the inherited knowledge of his race, the faculty of flight, by means of which he could shoot, meteor-like, across the sky, and pass swiftly from place to place; and with it such perfect
control over all his organs, such marvelous certitude in all his motions, as to be able to drop himself plumb down from the tallest tree-top , or out of the void air , on to a slender spray , and scarcely cause its leaves to tremble . Now , on this morning , he lies stiff and motionless ;
if you were to take him up and drop him from your hand , he would fall to the ground like a stone or a lump of clay-so easy and swift is the passage from life to death in wild nature! But he was never miserable
参考译文：
飞鸟之死
尽管天气是如此的寒冷，鸟儿还是矫捷地飞上一贯栖息的地方，把喙埋在翅膀下面，慢慢沉入梦乡，它没有丝毫的恐惧；睡梦中，只有滚烫的血液变得越来越冷；有力的脉搏也越来越微弱．在深夜或者第二天一大早，它便从栖身的考(试^大树枝上跌落下来，死掉了。

昨天它还活蹦乱跳，回应外界无数刺激。

它那奇异的小脑袋宛如明镜一般，映照着天地；它还会种种不同的语言，这是它们种族遗传下来的知识；还有飞行的技能，凭此它能流星般划过天空，迅速地从一个地方飞到另一个地方；它能如此完美地控制每一个器官，且每个动作都如此惊人地平稳，以致于它可以从最高的树顶垂直飞下，从空旷的空中飞落到细小的树枝上而几乎不让树叶抖动。

而现在，在这个清晨，它僵硬地躺在那儿,一动不动；假如你把它捡起来，抛向空中，它就会像石头或者泥巴那样掉落在地------在野生自然界中，由生到死是多么容易多么迅速的一个过程呀！但那鸟却永远不会觉得悲痛。

第 12 篇
原文：
Hour in the Sun
John H.Bradley “…I was rich，if not in money，in sunny hours and summer days.”
—-Henry David Thoreau When Thoreau wrote that line，he was thinking of the Walden. Pond he knew as a boy.
Woodchoppers and the Iron Horse had not yet greatly damaged the beauty of its setting.
A boy could go to the pond and lie on his back against the seat of a boat，lazily drifting from
shore to shore while the loons dived and the swallows dipped around him. Thoreau loved to recall such sunny hours and summer days “when idleness was the most attractive and productive business.”
I too was a boy in love with a pond，rich in sunny hours and summer days. Sun and
summer are still what the always were，but the boy and the pond changed. The boy，who is now a man，no longer finds much time for idle drifting. The pond has been annexed by a great city. The swamps where herons once hunted are now drained and filled with horses .The bay where water lilies quietly floated is now a harbor for motor boats. In short，everything that the boy loved no longer exists—- except in the man’s memory of it.
参考译文：
"我是富足的，即使没有万贯家资，却也拥有无数个艳阳天与夏日。

"
——梭罗当梭罗写下这句话时，他在怀念儿时的瓦尔登湖。

那时，伐木者与火车还未严重破坏湖畔美丽的景色，小男孩可以走向湖边，仰卧小舟，悠闲地飘荡在两岸之间，在他周围，潜水鸟在戏水，还有燕子轻盈地掠过湖面，梭罗喜欢回忆这样的艳阳天与夏日，"此时，悠闲也便成为最具有魅力且颇有裨益的事情。

"
我也曾经是个热爱湖泊的小男孩，也拥有无数个艳阳天与夏日，阳光与夏日依旧，而小男孩与湖泊却已改变，小男孩已长大成人，再也没有时间去湖上漂游。

而湖泊已被大城市所吞并，苍鹭曾经觅食的沼泽，也已干涸，上面盖满了房舍，莲花漂浮的湖湾，也成了汽艇停泊的港口.
总之，小男孩所喜爱的都已不复存在-----一切只停留在他的记忆里。

第 13 篇
原文：
The old lady had always been proud of the great rose-tree in her garden，and was fond of telling how it had grown from a cutting she had brought years before from Italy，when she was first married. She and her husband had been travelling back in their carriage from Rome ( it was before the time of railways ) and on a bad piece of road south of Siena they had broken down，and had been forced to pass the night in a little house by the road-side.
The accommodation was wretched of course; she had spent a sleepless night，and rising early had stood，wrapped up，at her window，with the cool air blowing on her face，to watch the dawn. She could still，after all these years，remember the blue mountains with the bright moon above them，and how a far-off town on one of the peaks had gradually grown whiter and whiter，till the moon faded，the mountains were touched with the pink of the rising sun，and suddenly the town was lit as by an illumination，one window after another catching and reflecting the sun's beam，till at last the whole little city twinkled and sparkled up in the sky like a nest of stars
参考译文：
老太太总以自家花园里那棵高大的玫瑰树为荣。

她非常喜欢告诉别人，数年前她初次结婚时从罗马带回来的枝条，是如何长成如今这般高大的。

那时，她与丈夫乘马车从罗马旅行归来(那时还没有火车)，途经锡耶那南部的崎岖路段时，马车坏了，他们被迫就宿于路边的小屋里。

住宿条件当然非常差，她一夜未能安眠，一早便起身穿好衣服，立于窗前，感受着扑面而来的席席凉风，等待着黎明的到来。

事隔多年，她仍然记得那情景，明月高悬在青山群峦之上，远处山峰上的小镇逐渐明亮起来，月亮慢慢消退，晨曦把群山涂得粉红。

突然之间，一束阳光照亮了城镇。

城里的窗户相继明亮起来，反射出耀眼的光芒。

最后，整个小城宛若繁星，在天空中不停闪烁。

第 14 篇
原文：
Some people insist that only today and tomorrow matter.But how much poorer we would be if we really lived by that rule! So much of what we do today is frivolous and futile and soon forgotten.So much of what we hope to do tomorrow never happens.
The past is the bank in which we store our most valuable possession: the memories that give meaning and depth to our lives.Those who truly treasure the past will not bemoan the passing of the good old days,because days enshrined in memory are never lost.Death itself is powerless to still a remembered voice or erase a remembered smile.And for one boy who is now a man, there is a pond which neither time nor tide can change,where he can still spend a quiet hour in the sun.
参考译文：
一些人坚持认为只有今日与明日最重要，可要按这条规则来生活的话,我们将会变得更加可怜，（我们的生活将会变得更加贫瘠）今天我们所做之事有多少是琐碎无功的，很快就被人遗忘，又有多少我们明天要为之事将会成为泡影。

过去是一所银行。

我们将最可贵的财富——记忆珍藏其中.这些记忆赋予我们生命的意义和厚度。

真正珍惜过去之人不会为美好时光逝去而哀叹，那些珍藏于记忆的时光是永远不会消失的，死亡本身也无法止住记忆中的声音，或擦除记忆中的微笑。

对于已经长大成人的小男孩来说，那儿将会有一个池塘，它不会因时间和潮汐而改变，可以让他继续在阳光下享受静谧的时光。

第 15 篇
第 16 篇
原文：
My husband and I have been married for five years and you can tell by our waistlines.
While we’re both naturally pretty slim and try to exercise somewhat regularly, we’ve definitely put on a few pounds since we exchanged vows (that’s us in the picture) and since we had our son. (In fact, my toddler’s favorite activity these days is squeezing my belly and
giggling hysterically. Thanks.)
New research, published in the journal Obesity and written about at , found that married couples are twice as likely to become obese as people in romantic relationships that weren’t married or living together. The longer couples are married, the greater the risk of gaining weight and becoming obese.
The researchers, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, say when people are living together they share behaviors, such as eating meals together and watching TV. The scientists also note that marriage provides a number of health benefits, including decreased cigarette smoking and lower mortality.
参考翻译：
我和丈夫结婚已经五年了，从我们的腰围就能看出来。

虽然我们俩都还算天生苗条，也尽量定期健身，但自打结婚生子以来我们还是无可避免地长胖了一点。

（事实上，我那个还在学步的孩子这段时间最喜欢的活动就是揪着我的肚皮狂笑。

真是多谢了。

）刊登在《肥胖》(Obesity)杂志和《商业周刊》网站()的新研究发现，已婚夫妇变得肥胖的机率是正在恋爱但尚未结婚或同居的人的两倍。

结婚时间越长，体重增加、变得肥胖的风险就越大。

北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校(University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)的研究人员说，两个人生活在一起就会一同行动，比如说一块儿吃饭看电视。

科学家们还强调，婚姻会带来许多健康方面的好处，比如说少抽烟，死亡率也会降低。

第 17 篇
原文
I agree to some extent with my imaginary English reader. American literary historians
are perhaps prone to view their own national scene too narrowly, mistaking prominence for uniqueness. They do over-phrase their own literature, or certainly its minor figures. And Americans do swing from aggressive overphrase of their literature to an equally unfortunate, imitative deference. But then, the English themselves are somewhat insular in their literary appraisals. Moreover, in fields where they are not pre-eminent - e. g. in painting and music -they too alternate between boasting of native products and copying those of the Continent.
How many English paintings try to look as though they were done in Paris; how many times have we read in articles that they really represent an "English tradition" after all.
To speak of American literature, then, is not to assert that it is completely unlike that of Europe. Broadly speaking, America and Europe have kept step. At any given moment the
traveler could find examples in both of the same architecture, the same styles in dress, the same books on the shelves. Ideas have crossed the Atlantic as freely as men and merchandise, though sometimes more slowly. When I refer to American habit, thoughts, etc., I intend some sort of qualification to precede the word, for frequently the difference between America and Europe (especially England) will be one of degree, sometimes only of a small degree. The amount of divergence is a subtle affair, liable to perplex the Englishman when he looks at America. He is looking at a country which in important senses grew out of his own, which in several ways still resembles his own - and which is yet a foreign country. There are odd overlappings and abrupt unfamiliarities; kinship yields to a sudden alienation, as when we hail a person across the street, only to discover from his blank response that we have mistaken a stranger for a friend.
参考译文
在某种程度上，我赞同我那假想中的英国读者的观点。

美国文学史家或许惯于过分狭隘地看待其本国文坛，误将卓著当作独特。

他们确实会用过多的笔墨来渲染其本国文学，至少，对其次要作家他们肯定会这样做。

此外，美国人确实会走极端，要么咄咄逼人地大肆渲染其文学，要么进行着同样不幸的亦步亦趋式的顶礼膜拜。

但反过来说，英国人自己在其文学鉴赏中也显得有些狭隘愚陋。

此外，在他们并无上乘表现的领域--例如绘画与音乐，他们也会走极端，不是吹嘘他们本国的作品，就是大肆模仿欧洲大陆的作品。

有多少幅英国绘画试图看上去仿佛是在巴黎完成的；但我们又有多少次曾在文章中读到它们真正代表着一种"英国式的传统"呢？
那么，要谈论美国文学，倒并非意欲断言，它与欧洲文学全然大相径庭。

广而言之，美国与欧洲一直同步发展，协调一致。

在任何一个特定的时刻，旅行者在两地均能目睹同一样式的建筑实例，相同款式的服饰，书架上相同的书籍。

在大西洋两岸，思想如同人员与货物往来一样自由交流，尽管有时会略显迟缓。

当我提及美国式的习惯、思想等概念时，我意欲在"美国式的"这一词汇之前加上某种限定，因为欧美（尤其是英美）之间的差异往往只是程度上的差异而已，并且有时候仅仅只是微乎其微的一点程度差异而已。

差异的多寡是件极为微妙的事务，这极容易使一个英国人在审视美国时大惑不解。

他所审视的那个国家，从某些重要的意义上来说，诞生于他自己的国家，并在某些方面仍与他自己的国家相差无几--然而，它却实实在在是一个异邦。

两者间存在着某些古怪的交替重迭，以及令人甚感突兀的陌生感；亲缘关系已让位于一种突如其来的异化与疏远，这种情景仿佛就像我们隔着马路向另一个人打招呼，结果却从这个人漠无表情的反应中发现，我们原来竟然错将生人当成了熟人。

第 18 篇
原文
Possession for its own sake or in competition with the rest of the neighborhood would have been Thoreau's idea of the low levels. The active discipline of heightening one's perception of what is enduring in nature would have been his idea of the high. What he saved from the low was time and effort he could spend on the high. Thoreau certainly disapproved of starvation, but he would put into feeding himself only as much effort as would keep him functioning for more important efforts.
Effort is the gist of it. There is no happiness except as we take on life-engaging difficulties. Short of the impossible, as Yeats put it, the satisfaction we get from a lifetime depends on how high we choose our difficulties. Robert Frost was thinking in something like the same terms when he spoke of “The pleasure of taking pains”. The mortal flaw in the advertised version of happiness is in the fact that it purports to be effortless.
We demand difficulty even in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. A game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it. The rules of the game are an arbitrary imposition of difficulty. When someone ruins the fun, he always does so by refusing to play by the rules. It is easier to win at chess if you are free, at your pleasure, to change the wholly arbitrary rules, but the fun is in winning within the rules. No difficulty, no fun.
参考译文
梭罗所理解的“低层次”，即为了拥有而去拥有，或与所有的邻居明争暗斗而致拥有。

他心目中的“高层次”，则是这样一种积极的人生戒律，即要使自己对自然界永恒之物的感悟臻于完美。

对于他从低层次上节省下来的时间和精力，他可将其致力于对高层次的追求。

勿庸置疑，梭罗不赞成忍饥挨饿，但他在膳食方面所投入的精力仅果腹而已，只要可确保他能去从事更为重要的事务，他便别无所求。

殚精竭虑，全力以赴，便是其精髓所在。

除非我们愿意直面那些需要我们全身心投入的艰难困苦，否则便不会有幸福可言。

正如叶芝所言，除却某些不可能的情形，我们于人生中所获取的满足皆取决于我们在多高的境界中选择我们所愿意面对的艰难困苦。

当罗伯特·弗罗斯特言及“以苦为乐”时，他内心所思，大体如此。

商业广告中所宣扬的那种幸福观，其致命的缺陷就在于这样一个事实，即它宣称，一切幸福皆唾手可得，不费吹灰之力。