My friends, before I begin the expression of those thoughts that I deem appropriate to this moment, would you permit me the privilege of uttering a little private prayer of my own. And I ask that you bow your heads: 我的朋友们，在开始表达我认为适合此刻的想法之前，请允许我发表一段自己的私人祈祷。我请求大家低头：
Almighty God, as we stand here at this moment my future associates in the Executive branch of Government join me in beseeching that Thou will make full and complete our dedication to the service of the people in this throng, and their fellow citizens everywhere. 全能的上帝啊，在我们此刻站在这里，我未来在政府行政部门的同僚们与我一同恳求，愿您使我们完全献身于为在场民众及各地同胞服务。
Give us, we pray, the power to discern clearly right from wrong, and allow all our words and actions to be governed thereby, and by the laws of this land. Especially we pray that our concern shall be for all the people regardless of station, race or calling. 求您赐予我们清晰辨别是非的能力，让我们的所有言行都以此为准绳，并遵循这片土地的法律。我们尤其祈祷，我们的关切应遍及所有人民，无论其地位、种族或职业。
May cooperation be permitted and be the mutual aim of those who, under the concepts of our Constitution, hold to differing political faiths; so that all may work for the good of our beloved country and Thy glory. Amen. 愿秉持不同政治信仰的人们，在宪法理念下能够合作，并以此为共同目标；如此，所有人都能为我们挚爱的国家和您的荣耀而努力。阿门。
My fellow citizens: 我的同胞们：
The world and we have passed the midway point of a century of continuing challenge. We sense with all our faculties that forces of good and evil are massed and armed and opposed as rarely before in history. 世界和我们已经走过了一个充满挑战的世纪的中途。我们凭直觉感到，善与恶的力量集结、武装并对峙，这在历史上是罕见的。
This fact defines the meaning of this day. We are summoned by this honored and historic ceremony to witness more than the act of one citizen swearing his oath of service, in the presence of God. We are called as a people to give testimony in the sight of the world to our faith that the future shall belong to the free. 这一事实定义了今天的意义。我们被这个庄严而历史性的仪式召唤，见证的不仅仅是一位公民在上帝面前宣誓服务的行为。我们作为一个民族被召唤，在世界面前见证我们的信念：未来属于自由。
Since this century's beginning, a time of tempest has seemed to come upon the continents of the earth. Masses of Asia have awakened to strike off shackles of the past. Great nations of Europe have fought their bloodiest wars. Thrones have toppled and their vast empires have disappeared. New nations have been born. 自本世纪初以来，地球各大洲似乎迎来了暴风雨的时代。亚洲大众觉醒，挣脱过去的枷锁。欧洲列强打了最血腥的战争。王位崩塌，庞大帝国消失。新国家诞生。
For our own country, it has been a time of recurring trial. We have grown in power and in responsibility. We have passed through the anxieties of depression and of war to a summit unmatched in man's history. Seeking to secure peace in the world, we have had to fight through the forests of the Argonne to the shores of Iwo Jima, and to the cold mountains of Korea. 对我们国家而言，这是一个反复考验的时代。我们的力量和责任都在增长。我们经历了大萧条和战争的焦虑，达到了人类历史上前所未有的顶峰。为了确保世界和平，我们不得不从阿贡森林打到硫磺岛海岸，再打到朝鲜的寒冷山区。
In the swift rush of great events, we find ourselves groping to know the full sense and meaning of these times in which we live. In our quest of understanding, we beseech God's guidance. We summon all our knowledge of the past and we scan all signs of the future. We bring all our wit and all our will to meet the question: 在重大事件的迅速推进中，我们发现自己在摸索，想要了解我们所处时代的全部意义。在寻求理解的过程中，我们祈求上帝的指引。我们回顾过去的所有知识，审视未来的所有迹象。我们倾注所有智慧和意志来回答这个问题：
How far have we come in man's long pilgrimage from darkness toward the light? Are we nearing the light--a day of freedom and of peace for all mankind? Or are the shadows of another night closing in upon us? 在人类从黑暗走向光明的漫长旅程中，我们走了多远？我们是否正在接近光明——一个全人类自由与和平的时代？还是另一个黑夜的阴影正在向我们逼近？
Great as are the preoccupations absorbing us at home, concerned as we are with matters that deeply affect our livelihood today and our vision of the future, each of these domestic problems is dwarfed by, and often even created by, this question that involves all humankind. 尽管国内事务占据我们极大的关注，尽管我们关心那些深刻影响我们今天生计和未来愿景的问题，但每一个国内问题都被这个关乎全人类的问题所掩盖，甚至常常由它所引发。
This trial comes at a moment when man's power to achieve good or to inflict evil surpasses the brightest hopes and the sharpest fears of all ages. We can turn rivers in their courses, level mountains to the plains. Oceans and land and sky are avenues for our colossal commerce. Disease diminishes and life lengthens. 这场考验来得正是时候，人类实现善或造成恶的力量超越了所有时代最光明的希望和最尖锐的恐惧。我们可以改变河流的走向，将山脉夷为平地。海洋、陆地和天空都是我们庞大商业的通道。疾病减少，寿命延长。
Yet the promise of this life is imperiled by the very genius that has made it possible. Nations amass wealth. Labor sweats to create--and turns out devices to level not only mountains but also cities. Science seems ready to confer upon us, as its final gift, the power to erase human life from this planet. 然而，这种生活的希望却被使之成为可能的智慧本身所危及。国家积聚财富。劳动者辛勤创造——却生产出不仅能夷平山脉还能摧毁城市的装置。科学似乎准备将抹去地球上人类生命的力量作为最后的礼物赐予我们。
At such a time in history, we who are free must proclaim anew our faith. This faith is the abiding creed of our fathers. It is our faith in the deathless dignity of man, governed by eternal moral and natural laws. 在这样一个历史时刻，我们自由人民必须重新宣示我们的信念。这一信念是我们先辈永恒的信条。这是我们对人不朽尊严的信念，人受永恒的道德和自然法则支配。
This faith defines our full view of life. It establishes, beyond debate, those gifts of the Creator that are man's inalienable rights, and that make all men equal in His sight. 这一信念定义了我们完整的人生观。它无可争辩地确立了造物主赋予人类的不可剥夺的权利，使所有人在祂眼中平等。
In the light of this equality, we know that the virtues most cherished by free people--love of truth, pride of work, devotion to country--all are treasures equally precious in the lives of the most humble and of the most exalted. The men who mine coal and fire furnaces, and balance ledgers, and turn lathes, and pick cotton, and heal the sick and plant corn--all serve as proudly and as profitably for America as the statesmen who draft treaties and the legislators who enact laws. 基于这种平等，我们知道，自由人民最珍视的美德——热爱真理、以劳动为荣、忠于国家——在最卑微者和最高贵者的生命中都是同样珍贵的财富。挖煤和烧炉的人、记账的人、操作车床的人、摘棉花的人、治病的人和种玉米的人——所有人都为美国服务，其自豪程度和贡献不亚于起草条约的政治家和制定法律的立法者。
This faith rules our whole way of life. It decrees that we, the people, elect leaders not to rule but to serve. It asserts that we have the right to choice of our own work and to the reward of our own toil. It inspires the initiative that makes our productivity the wonder of the world. And it warns that any man who seeks to deny equality among all his brothers betrays the spirit of the free and invites the mockery of the tyrant. 这一信念支配着我们的整个生活方式。它规定我们人民选举领导人不是为了统治而是为了服务。它断言我们有权选择自己的工作并获得自己劳动的回报。它激发的主动性使我们的生产力成为世界奇迹。它警告说，任何企图否认所有兄弟平等的人都是背叛自由精神，并招致暴君的嘲笑。
It is because we, all of us, hold to these principles that the political changes accomplished this day do not imply turbulence, upheaval or disorder. Rather this change expresses a purpose of strengthening our dedication and devotion to the precepts of our founding documents, a conscious renewal of faith in our country and in the watchfulness of a Divine Providence. 正是因为我们所有人都坚持这些原则，今天所完成的政治变革并不意味着动荡、剧变或混乱。相反，这一变革表达了加强我们对开国文件戒律的奉献和忠诚的目的，是对我们国家和神圣天意监护的信念的自觉更新。
The enemies of this faith know no god but force, no devotion but its use. They tutor men in treason. They feed upon the hunger of others. Whatever defies them, they torture, especially the truth. 这一信念的敌人只信奉武力，只献身于武力的使用。他们教唆人们叛国。他们以他人的饥饿为食。任何违抗他们的人，他们都施以酷刑，尤其是对真理。
Here, then, is joined no argument between slightly differing philosophies. This conflict strikes directly at the faith of our fathers and the lives of our sons. No principle or treasure that we hold, from the spiritual knowledge of our free schools and churches to the creative magic of free labor and capital, nothing lies safely beyond the reach of this struggle. 因此，这里不存在略有不同的哲学之间的争论。这场冲突直接冲击我们先辈的信念和我们子孙的生命。我们所珍视的任何原则或财富，从自由学校和教堂的精神知识到自由劳动和资本的创造性魔力，没有任何东西能安全地脱离这场斗争的触及范围。
Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against the dark 自由与奴役相对立；光明与黑暗相对立。
The faith we hold belongs not to us alone but to the free of all the world. This common bond binds the grower of rice in Burma and the planter of wheat in Iowa, the shepherd in southern Italy and the mountaineer in the Andes. It confers a common dignity upon the French soldier who dies in Indo-China, the British soldier killed in Malaya, the American life given in Korea. 我们所持有的信念不仅属于我们自己，也属于全世界的自由人民。这一共同纽带将缅甸的稻农和爱荷华州的麦农、意大利南部的牧羊人和安第斯山脉的登山者联系在一起。它赋予在印度支那牺牲的法国士兵、在马来亚阵亡的英国士兵、在朝鲜献出生命的美国士兵共同的尊严。
We know, beyond this, that we are linked to all free peoples not merely by a noble idea but by a simple need. No free people can for long cling to any privilege or enjoy any safety in economic solitude. For all our own material might, even we need markets in the world for the surpluses of our farms and our factories. Equally, we need for these same farms and factories vital materials and products of distant lands. This basic law of interdependence, so manifest in the commerce of peace, applies with thousand-fold intensity in the event of war. 此外，我们知道，我们与所有自由人民的联系不仅源于崇高的理念，也源于简单的需要。任何自由民族都不能长期固守特权或在经济孤立中享受安全。尽管我们拥有强大的物质力量，但我们的农场和工厂的剩余产品仍需要世界市场。同样，我们的农场和工厂也需要远方土地的重要原材料和产品。这种相互依存的基本法则，在和平贸易中如此明显，在战争发生时则以千倍的强度适用。
So we are persuaded by necessity and by belief that the strength of all free peoples lies in unity; their danger, in discord. 因此，必要性和信念使我们相信，所有自由人民的力量在于团结；他们的危险在于分裂。
To produce this unity, to meet the challenge of our time, destiny has laid upon our country the responsibility of the free world's leadership. 为了实现这种团结，迎接我们时代的挑战，命运赋予我国自由世界领导的责任。
So it is proper that we assure our friends once again that, in the discharge of this responsibility, we Americans know and we observe the difference between world leadership and imperialism; between firmness and truculence; between a thoughtfully calculated goal and spasmodic reaction to the stimulus of emergencies. 因此，我们应当再次向我们的朋友保证，在履行这一责任时，我们美国人懂得并遵守世界领导与帝国主义之间的区别；坚定与蛮横之间的区别；深思熟虑的目标与对紧急情况刺激的痉挛性反应之间的区别。
We wish our friends the world over to know this above all: we face the threat--not with dread and confusion--but with confidence and conviction. 我们希望全世界的朋友首先了解这一点：我们面对威胁——不是带着恐惧和困惑——而是带着信心和信念。
We feel this moral strength because we know that we are not helpless prisoners of history. We are free men. We shall remain free, never to be proven guilty of the one capital offense against freedom, a lack of stanch faith. 我们感受到这种道德力量，因为我们知道我们不是历史的无助囚徒。我们是自由人。我们将永远保持自由，永远不会被证明犯有反对自由的死罪——缺乏坚定的信念。
In pleading our just cause before the bar of history and in pressing our labor for world peace, we shall be guided by certain fixed principles. These principles are: 在历史的法庭上为我们的正义事业辩护，并为世界和平而努力时，我们将遵循某些固定原则。这些原则是：
- Abhorring war as a chosen way to balk the purposes of those who threaten us, we hold it to be the first task of statesmanship to develop the strength that will deter the forces of aggression and promote the conditions of peace. For, as it must be the supreme purpose of all free men, so it must be the dedication of their leaders, to save humanity from preying upon itself.
- 我们憎恶战争作为挫败威胁我们的人的目的的选择方式，我们认为政治家的首要任务是发展力量，以威慑侵略力量并促进和平条件。因为，正如所有自由人民的最高目标必须是拯救人类免于自相残杀，他们的领导人也必须为此奉献。
In the light of this principle, we stand ready to engage with any and all others in joint effort to remove the causes of mutual fear and distrust among nations, so as to make possible drastic reduction of armaments. The sole requisites for undertaking such effort are that--in their purpose--they be aimed logically and honestly toward secure peace for all; and that--in their result--they provide methods by which every participating nation will prove good faith in carrying out its pledge. 基于这一原则，我们随时准备与任何其他国家共同努力，消除各国之间相互恐惧和不信任的原因，以便大幅削减军备。进行这种努力的唯一必要条件是——在目的上——它们应合理而诚实地旨在确保所有人的安全和平；并且——在结果上——它们应提供方法，使每个参与国在履行其承诺时证明其诚意。
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Realizing that common sense and common decency alike dictate the futility of appeasement, we shall never try to placate an aggressor by the false and wicked bargain of trading honor for security. Americans, indeed, all free men, remember that in the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains.
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我们认识到常识和基本道德都表明绥靖是徒劳的，我们决不会试图以用荣誉换取安全这种虚假而邪恶的交易来安抚侵略者。美国人，事实上所有自由人，都记得在最终选择中，士兵的背包并不比囚犯的锁链更沉重。
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Knowing that only a United States that is strong and immensely productive can help defend freedom in our world, we view our Nation's strength and security as a trust upon which rests the hope of free men everywhere. It is the firm duty of each of our free citizens and of every free citizen everywhere to place the cause of his country before the comfort, the convenience of himself.
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我们知道，只有一个强大而富有生产力的国家才能帮助捍卫我们世界的自由，我们将我国的力量和安全视为一项信任，全世界自由人民的希望都寄托于此。每个自由公民——无论是我们的还是世界任何地方的——都有坚定的责任将国家事业置于个人的舒适和便利之前。
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Honoring the identity and the special heritage of each nation in the world, we shall never use our strength to try to impress upon another people our own cherished political and economic institutions.
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我们尊重世界上每个国家的特性和特殊遗产，我们决不会用我们的力量试图将我们珍视的政治和经济制度强加于另一个民族。
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Assessing realistically the needs and capacities of proven friends of freedom, we shall strive to help them to achieve their own security and well-being. Likewise, we shall count upon them to assume, within the limits of their resources, their full and just burdens in the common defense of freedom.
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我们实事求是地评估自由事业的可靠朋友的需求和能力，努力帮助他们实现自身的安全和福祉。同样，我们将指望他们在其资源范围内，为共同捍卫自由承担充分而公正的责任。
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Recognizing economic health as an indispensable basis of military strength and the free world's peace, we shall strive to foster everywhere, and to practice ourselves, policies that encourage productivity and profitable trade. For the impoverishment of any single people in the world means danger to the well-being of all other peoples.
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我们认识到经济健康是军事力量和自由世界和平不可或缺的基础，我们将努力在各地促进并亲自实践鼓励生产力和有利贸易的政策。因为世界上任何一个民族的贫困都意味着所有其他民族福祉的危险。
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Appreciating that economic need, military security and political wisdom combine to suggest regional groupings of free peoples, we hope, within the framework of the United Nations, to help strengthen such special bonds the world over. The nature of these ties must vary with the different problems of different areas.
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我们认识到经济需求、军事安全和政治智慧共同表明自由人民应进行区域联合，我们希望在联合国框架内帮助加强世界各地的这种特殊纽带。这些纽带的性质必须因不同地区的不同问题而有所不同。
In the Western Hemisphere, we enthusiastically join with all our neighbors in the work of perfecting a community of fraternal trust and common purpose. 在西半球，我们热情地与所有邻国一起努力，完善一个兄弟般信任和共同目标的共同体。
In Europe, we ask that enlightened and inspired leaders of the Western nations strive with renewed vigor to make the unity of their peoples a reality. Only as free Europe unitedly marshals its strength can it effectively safeguard, even with our help, its spiritual and cultural heritage. 在欧洲，我们要求西方国家开明而富有灵感的领导人以新的活力努力使各国人民的团结成为现实。只有当自由欧洲联合起来集结力量时，它才能在我们的帮助下有效维护其精神和文化遗产。
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Conceiving the defense of freedom, like freedom itself, to be one and indivisible, we hold all continents and peoples in equal regard and honor. We reject any insinuation that one race or another, one people or another, is in any sense inferior or expendable.
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我们认为自由的防御与自由本身一样，是不可分割的，我们对所有大陆和人民一视同仁。我们拒绝任何暗示，即某个种族或民族在任何意义上是劣等或可牺牲的。
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Respecting the United Nations as the living sign of all people's hope for peace, we shall strive to make it not merely an eloquent symbol but an effective force. And in our quest for an honorable peace, we shall neither compromise, nor tire, nor ever cease.
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我们尊重联合国作为所有人民和平希望的鲜活标志，我们将努力使其不仅成为雄辩的象征，而且成为有效的力量。在寻求体面和平的过程中，我们既不会妥协，也不会疲倦，更不会停止。
By these rules of conduct, we hope to be known to all peoples. 通过这些行为准则，我们希望为所有人民所了解。
By their observance, an earth of peace may become not a vision but a fact. 通过遵守这些准则，一个和平的地球可能不再是愿景而是现实。
This hope--this supreme aspiration--must rule the way we live. 这一希望——这一最高愿望——必须支配我们的生活方式。
We must be ready to dare all for our country. For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. We must acquire proficiency in defense and display stamina in purpose. 我们必须准备为国家敢于一切。因为历史不会长期将自由的守护托付给弱者或胆小者。我们必须掌握防御的技能，并展示目标的毅力。
We must be willing, individually and as a Nation, to accept whatever sacrifices may be required of us. A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. 我们必须愿意，无论是作为个人还是作为一个国家，接受可能要求我们做出的任何牺牲。一个将特权置于原则之上的民族很快会两者皆失。
These basic precepts are not lofty abstractions, far removed from matters of daily living. They are laws of spiritual strength that generate and define our material strength. Patriotism means equipped forces and a prepared citizenry. Moral stamina means more energy and more productivity, on the farm and in the factory. Love of liberty means the guarding of every resource that makes freedom possible--from the sanctity of our families and the wealth of our soil to the genius of our scientists. 这些基本戒律不是远离日常生活的崇高抽象概念。它们是精神力量的法则，产生并定义我们的物质力量。爱国主义意味着装备精良的部队和有准备的公民。道德毅力意味着农场和工厂中更多的精力和更高的生产力。热爱自由意味着守护使自由成为可能的每一项资源——从家庭的神圣到土地的财富，再到科学家的智慧。
And so each citizen plays an indispensable role. The productivity of our heads, our hands and our hearts is the source of all the strength we can command, for both the enrichment of our lives and the winning of the peace. 因此，每个公民都扮演着不可或缺的角色。我们头脑、双手和心灵的生产力是我们能够掌握的所有力量的源泉，既能丰富我们的生活，也能赢得和平。
No person, no home, no community can be beyond the reach of this call. We are summoned to act in wisdom and in conscience, to work with industry, to teach with persuasion, to preach with conviction, to weigh our every deed with care and with compassion. For this truth must be clear before us: whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America. 任何人、任何家庭、任何社区都不能逃避这一召唤。我们被召唤以智慧和良知行动，勤奋工作，以说服力教导，以信念传道，以关怀和同情权衡我们的每一项行动。因为这一真理必须在我们面前清晰：美国希望在世界上实现的任何目标，首先必须在美国人的心中实现。
The peace we seek, then, is nothing less than the practice and fulfillment of our whole faith among ourselves and in our dealings with others. This signifies more than the stilling of guns, casing the sorrow of war. More than escape from death, it is a way of life. More than a haven for the weary, it is a hope for the brave. 因此，我们寻求的和平，无非是在我们自己之间以及在与他人的交往中践行和实现我们的全部信念。这不仅仅意味着枪声停止，战争的悲痛终结。它不仅仅是逃离死亡，而是一种生活方式。它不仅仅是疲惫者的避风港，而是勇敢者的希望。
This is the hope that beckons us onward in this century of trial. This is the work that awaits us all, to be done with bravery, with charity, and with prayer to Almighty God. 这是在这个考验世纪中召唤我们前进的希望。这是我们所有人都有待完成的工作，要以勇气、仁慈和对全能上帝的祈祷来完成。
My citizens--I thank you. 我的同胞们——谢谢你们。