Obama演讲词收录

freehuang

I’ve talked about teachers’ responsibility for inspiring students and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track,
and you get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with the Xbox.
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards,
and supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working,
where students aren’t getting the opportunities that they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents,
the best schools in the world — and none of it will make a difference,
none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities,
unless you show up to those schools, unless you pay attention to those teachers,
unless you listen to your parents and grandparents and other adults and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
That’s what I wanna focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education.
I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.
Every single one of you has something that you’re good at.
Every single one of you has something to offer.
And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is.
That’s the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a great writer — maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper —
but you might not know it until you write that English paper — that English class paper that’s assigned to you.
Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor — maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or the new medicine or vaccine —
but you might not know it until you do your project for your science class.

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Maybe you could be a mayor or a senator or a Supreme Court justice —
but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
And no matter what you want to do with your life, I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it.
You wanna be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer?
You wanna be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military?
You’re gonna need a good education for every single one of those careers.
You cannot drop out of school and just drop into a good job.
You’ve got to train for it and work for it and learn for it.
And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future.
What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country.
The future of America depends on you.
What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS,
and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment.
You’ll need the insights and critical-thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness,
crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free.
You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that’ll create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents and your skills and your intellect
so you can help us old folks solve our most difficult problems.
If you don’t do that — if you quit on school — you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.
I know it’s not always easy to do well in school.
I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that
can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
I get it. I know what it’s like.

freehuang

My father left my family when I was two years old,
and I was raised by a single mom who had to work and who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us the things that other kids had.
There were times when I missed having a father in my life.
There were times when I was lonely and I felt like I didn’t fit in.
So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been on school,
and I did some things I’m not proud of, and I got in more trouble than I should have.
And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
But I was — I was lucky. I got a lot of second chances, and I had the opportunity to go to college and law school and follow my dreams.
My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, she has a similar story.
Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have a lot of money.
But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you might not have those advantages.
Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need.
Maybe someone in your family has lost their job and there’s not enough money to go around.
Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe,
or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life —
what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home —
none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school.
That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school.
There is no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up.
No one’s written your destiny for you, because here in America, you write your own destiny.
You make your own future.
That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.
Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas.
Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school.
Neither of her parents had gone to college.

freehuang

But she worked hard, earned good grades, and got a scholarship to Brown University —
is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to becoming Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three.
He’s had to endure all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory,
so it took him much longer — hundreds of extra hours — to do his schoolwork.
But he never fell behind. He’s headed to college this fall.
And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois.
Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods in the city,
she managed to get a job at a local health care center,
start a program to keep young people out of gangs, and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.
And Jazmin, Andoni, and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you.
They face challenges in their lives just like you do.
In some cases they’ve got it a lot worse off than many of you. But they refused to give up.
They chose to take responsibility for their lives, for their education, and set goals for themselves.
And I expect all of you to do the same.
That’s why today I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education —
and do everything you can to meet them.
Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending some time each day reading a book.
Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community.
Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look,
because you believe, like I do, that all young people deserve a safe environment to study and learn.
Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn.
And along those lines, by the way, I hope all of you are washing your hands a lot,
and that you stay home from school when you don’t feel well,
so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.
But whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work —
that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star.
Chances are you’re not gonna be any of those things.
The truth is, being successful is hard.
You won’t love every subject that you study.
You won’t click with every teacher that you have.

freehuang

Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right at this minute.
And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That’s okay.
Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. J.K. Rowling’s —
who wrote Harry Potter — her first Harry Potter book was rejected 12 times before it was finally published.
Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
He lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career.
But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that’s why I succeed.”
These people succeeded because they understood that you can’t let your failures define you —
you have to let your failures teach you.
You have to let them show you what to do differently the next time.
So if you get into trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to act right.
If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
No one’s born being good at all things.
You become good at things through hard work.
You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport.
You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song.
You’ve got to practice. The same principle applies to your schoolwork.
You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right.
You might have to read something a few times before you understand it.
You definitely have to do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.
I do that every day.

freehuang

Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness,
it’s a sign of strength because it shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something,
and that then allows you to learn something new.
So find an adult that you trust — a parent, a grandparent or teacher, a coach or a counselor —
and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged,
and you feel like other people have given up on you, don’t ever give up on yourself,
because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough.
It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder,
who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago,
and went on to wage a revolution and they founded this nation.
Young people.
Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war;
who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon.
Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google and Twitter and Facebook and
changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I wanna ask all of you, what’s your contribution gonna be?
What problems are you gonna solve? What discoveries will you make?
What will a President who comes here in 20 or 50 or 100 years say about what all of you did for this country?
Now, your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions.

freehuang

I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books and the equipment and the computers you need to learn.
But you’ve got to do your part, too. So I expect all of you to get serious this year.
I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you.
So don’t let us down. Don’t let your family down or your country down.
Most of all, don’t let yourself down.
Make us all proud.
Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you.
God bless America. Thank you.

freehuang

下一篇是Obama的获胜演讲，不用再介绍了绝对是最经典的一篇演讲，曾经有一位牛人把这篇演讲词给翻译成古汉语，读来特别感觉亲切，有兴趣的可以上网寻找这篇文言文翻译，这里就不展示了，这里只展示英文：
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible;
who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time;
who still questions the power of our democracy,
tonight is your answer.
It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen;
by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives,
because they believed that this time must be different;
that their voices could be that difference.
It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican,
black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled
— Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals
or a collection of Red States and Blue States
— we are, and always will be, the United States of America!
It’s the answer that... that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical,
and fearful, and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history
and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day,
in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.
A little bit earlier this evening,
I received an extraordinarily gracious call from Senator McCain.

freehuang

Senator McCain fought long and hard in this campaign,
and he’s fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves.
He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine.
We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader.
I congratulate him; I congratulate Governor Palin for all that they’ve achieved,
and I look forward to working with them to renew this nation’s promise in the months ahead.
I want to thank my partner in this journey,
a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women
he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on the train home to Delaware,
the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.
And I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years,
the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation’s next First Lady: Michelle Obama.
Sasha and Malia, I love you both more than you can imagine,
and you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House.
And while she’s no longer with us, I know my grandmother’s watching,
along with the family that made me who I am.
I miss them tonight. I know that my debt to them is beyond measure.
To my sister Maya, my sister Alma, all my other brothers and sisters
— thank you so much for all the support that you’ve given me.
I am grateful to them.
To my campaign manager, David Plouffe — the unsung hero of this campaign,
who built the best — the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States of America.
To my chief strategist David Axelrod — who’s been a partner with me every step of the way.
To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics
— you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you’ve sacrificed to get it done.
But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to.
It belongs to you. It belongs to you. I was never the likeliest candidate for this office.
We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements.
Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington.
It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.
It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings
they had to give 5 dollars, 10 dollars and 20 dollars to the cause.

freehuang

It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy,
who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.
It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold
and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers,
and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized
and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people,
and for the people has not perished from the Earth.
This is your victory.
I know you didn’t do this just to win an election.
I know you didn’t do it for me.
You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead.
For even as we celebrate tonight,
we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime:
two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.
Even as we stand here tonight,
we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq
and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.
There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after the children fall asleep
and wonder how they’ll make the mortgage or pay their doctors’ bills
or save enough for their child’s college education.
There’s new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build,
and threats to meet, alliances to repair.
The road ahead will be long.
Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term.
But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.
I promise you, we as a people will get there.
There will be setbacks and false starts.
There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as President.
And we know the government can’t solve every problem.
But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face.
I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.
And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation,
the only way it’s been done in America for 221 years
— block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.
What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night.
This victory alone is not the change we seek.
It is only the chance for us to make that change.
And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.
It can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility,
where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.
Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything,
it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.
In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people.
Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship
and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.
Let’s remember that it was a man from this state
who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House,
a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.
Those are values that we all share.