Four Quotes-四句名言

第2个持续写作365天计划，持续写作第91天：Four Quotes-四句名言

Word economy has always been my foremost goal as a writer. I want to say as much as I can with as little as possible. Consequently, I’m a collector of great quotes. They shine a light on the other side of known truths. Within a few lines, they contain the ultimate and concentrated power of writing. I’ve only read a few that really made me pause and consider the world.

世界经济一直是我作为作家的首要目标。我想尽可能少地说尽可能多的话。因此，我是一个伟大的语录收藏家。它们照亮了已知真理的另一面。在几行字之内，它们包含了写作的终极和集中的力量。我只读过几本让我停下来思考世界的书。

1. The Ascendance of Absolute, Unrivaled Brilliance绝对的、无与伦比的辉煌

Every generation brings a few one-in-a-billion geniuses. Nikola Tesla was one of them. He was a full order of magnitude above the line at which genius is defined. As a child, he memorized entire books and flew through the hardest academic subjects. Throughout his life, he mastered 8 languages. You will not find a long list of people who were smarter than Nikola Tesla. He paid a steep price for his brilliance. He was unable to relate to others. He never had a romantic partner and his mental health was a massive problem.

每一代人都会带来十亿分之一的天才。尼古拉·特斯拉就是其中之一。他比定义天才的界限高出整整一个数量级。孩提时代，他背了整本书，还钻研了最难的学科。在他的一生中，他掌握了8种语言。你不会找到一长串比尼古拉·特斯拉聪明的人。他为自己的才华付出了高昂的代价。他无法与人交往。他从来没有一个浪漫的伴侣，他的心理健康是个大问题。

Tesla wasn’t commercially minded. He didn’t monetize his 700+ patents, though many others got rich off his ideas. His inventions (alternating currents, remote controls, induction motors, and many more) had a lasting effect on engineering. Many of the things you use are extensions of his innovations. You wouldn’t have them without Tesla.

特斯拉没有商业头脑。他没有将他的700多项专利转化为货币，尽管其他许多人从他的想法中致富。他的发明（交流电、遥控器、感应电动机等等）对工程产生了持久的影响。你使用的很多东西都是他的创新的延伸。没有特斯拉你就不会有他们。

Beyond his ability to invent and understand the most complex concepts, he had one ability that separates a super genius from your “normal” genius: he could see far into the future. He was a visionary. Tesla made one of the most accurate and detailed predictions that any human has ever made. He said this of technology in 1926.

除了他发明和理解最复杂概念的能力之外，他还有一种能力，可以将超级天才与你的“正常”天才区分开：他能看到遥远的未来。他是个有远见的人。特斯拉做出了人类所做过的最准确、最详细的预测之一。他在1926年说过这样的技术。

“When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole.

“当无线技术得到完美应用时，整个地球将变成一个巨大的大脑，事实上，所有的东西都是一个真实的、有节奏的整体的粒子。

We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone.

不管距离有多远，我们都能立即交流。不仅如此，通过电视和电话，我们可以像面对面一样完美地看到和听到对方，尽管其间的距离有数千英里；与我们现在的电话相比，我们能够做到这一点的仪器将非常简单。

A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”一个男人可以把它放在背心口袋里。”Sound familiar? And yet many people thought he was crazy. Don’t be afraid of big bold ideas from really smart people. History has a habit of turning madmen into geniuses.听起来很熟悉？但很多人认为他疯了。不要害怕聪明人的大胆想法。历史有把疯子变成天才的习惯。

2. Chills Down My Arm让我的胳膊冷下来

Small is a relative term. And in the case of Mauthausen, it was a small concentration camp. It was your run-of-the-mill hell incarnate for Jews and outcasts. More than 130,000 people lost their lives there. This camp is famous for its stairs of death on which emaciated prisoners were forced to carry 30–50 kg granite rocks over and over again, despite many of them weighing around 45 kg. If you fell, you were maimed, rendered unable to work – you were usually executed fairly shortly thereafter. Or you were left in prison to suffer for a few days first. There were countless horrifying games that guards played with prisoners, the details of which I won’t get into here.

小是一个相对的术语。在莫瑟森的案例中，这是一个小的集中营。这是你为犹太人和被驱逐者的普通地狱化身。超过13万人在那里丧生。这个集中营以死亡阶梯闻名，瘦弱的囚犯不得不一次又一次地搬运30-50公斤的花岗岩石块，尽管其中许多石头重达45公斤。如果你摔倒了，你就会残废，无法工作——你通常很快就会被处死。或者你先被关在监狱里受苦几天。狱警和囚犯玩过无数可怕的游戏，我在这里不谈这些游戏的细节。

At the end of the war, as the camps were liberated, they began cleaning out and inspecting Mauthausen. One inspector was patrolling through the dark and shadowed cells of Block C, an area where nearly all who entered either died or left only to attend their own execution. Inside of one cell, he found, scratched on the wall: “If there is a God, he will have to beg for my forgiveness.” The line sent a chill down my arm. It brought the image of a God on his knees, begging for his life, about to be murdered by one of his own creations.

战争结束后，随着集中营的解放，他们开始清理和视察毛瑟森。一名督察在C区黑暗阴暗的牢房里巡逻，几乎所有进入这里的人要么死亡，要么离开，只为参加自己的处决。在一间牢房里，他发现，在墙上划着：“如果有上帝，他将不得不乞求我的原谅。”这句话让我的手臂感到一阵寒意。它带来了一个上帝的形象跪在他的膝盖上，乞求他的生命，即将被他的一个创造物谋杀。

It’s important to remember lines like this. Our minds tend to become soft and presumptuous of our luxuries. The paradox of happiness is that it requires we acknowledge the suffering of others.

记住这样的台词很重要。我们的思想倾向于变得柔软，对我们的奢侈品放肆。幸福的悖论在于，它要求我们承认他人的痛苦。

3. Oscar Wilde奥斯卡王尔德

I first discovered the Internet in the 1990s. We had a dial-up connection that cut off every 4 hours. If you searched for “shoes”, it pulled up a bunch of mom and pop “Joe’s Shoe Store” websites. Traditional SEO competition was non-existent. But one thing that was the same – how rude the people were. They used fake names, their behavior was just as acidic.

我第一次发现互联网是在20世纪90年代。我们有一个拨号连接，每4小时切断一次。如果你搜索“鞋子”，它会弹出一堆夫妻“乔的鞋店”网站。传统的搜索引擎优化竞争是不存在的。但有一件事是一样的——人们是多么粗鲁。他们用的是假名字，他们的行为也很刻薄。

Insert Oscar Wilde, the Irish poet, and writer who, in my book, can do no wrong. He is a machine gun of epic quotes. He knew nothing of the internet nor comment sections. But he seemed to have a great pulse on human nature. He said of people, “Give a man a mask, and he’ll show you his true face.”

插入奥斯卡王尔德，爱尔兰诗人和作家，在我的书中，他不会做错任何事。他是一个充满史诗格言的机关枪。他对互联网和评论部分一无所知。但他似乎对人性很有把握。他对人说：“给一个人一个面具，他就会让你看到他的真面目。”

With that – please consider as you go back to your keyboards, that the person you are responding to is another human being. I have yet to see a comment section debate lead to any meaningful learning. Don’t fall into the trap. Treat people with the same respect you’d give them when looking them in the eyes.

那么，当你回到你的键盘时，请考虑到你所回应的人是另一个人。我还没有看到评论部分的辩论导致任何有意义的学习。别掉进陷阱。对待别人要像对待别人的眼睛一样尊重他们。

4. The Life of Strange奇怪的生活

I used to coach swimming in the early 2000’s. It probably won’t surprise you that my most challenging group was the middle school boys. But where a few of them were difficult, others were in need of help. They were “different”. Consequently, they were bullied frequently at school. They would come in upset about how their day had gone. I identified with them on so many levels as I’ve spent my entire life having people tell me, “You are one weird guy.” I would reassure them that they were simply misunderstood and that they were in good company: some of the greatest people who ever lived were treated as weirdos.

我在2000年早期曾执教游泳。我最具挑战性的小组是中学生，这可能不会让你感到惊讶。但在其中一些困难的地方，其他人则需要帮助。他们是“不同的”。因此，他们在学校经常受到欺负。他们会对自己的一天过得很难过。我在很多层面上认同他们，因为我花了一生的时间让人们告诉我，“你是一个奇怪的人。”我会向他们保证，他们只是被误解了，他们是好朋友：一些最伟大的人谁曾被视为怪人。

Friedrich Nietzsche, another mega genius, was in this camp at one point too. He was, by very definition, different than his peers. People tend to attack things they don’t understand. Throughout his life, he proposed many wild and brilliant ideas, faced his own share of critics, and endured his own moments of social isolation. One line he wrote, that I encourage any who feel misunderstood to remember: “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”

另一位超级天才弗里德里希·尼采也曾在这个阵营中。从定义上讲，他与同龄人不同。人们倾向于攻击他们不理解的东西。在他的一生中，他提出了许多荒诞而辉煌的想法，面对自己的批评，忍受着自己的社会孤立时刻。他写了一句话，我鼓励所有感到被误解的人记住：“那些被看到跳舞的人被那些听不到音乐的人认为是疯了。”

Humanity is filled with wild and shimmering variety. Those who see “different” and attack are afraid of their own authenticity. Don’t shy away from living your own truth. If you haven’t been told “you’re weird” a few times along the way, you aren’t doing it right.

人类充满了野性和闪烁的多样性。那些看到“不同”和攻击的人害怕自己的真实性。不要回避自己的真理。如果你一直没有被告知“你很奇怪”几次，那你做得不对。