On each national day of Inauguration since 1789, the people have renewed their sense of dedication to the United States. 自1789年以来，在每一个国家就职日，人民都重新表达了对合众国的奉献精神。
In Washington's day the task of the people was to create and weld together a Nation. 在华盛顿时代，人民的任务是创建和团结一个国家。
In Lincoln's day the task of the people was to preserve that Nation from disruption from within. 在林肯时代，人民的任务是维护这个国家免受内部分裂。
In this day the task of the people is to save that Nation and its institutions from disruption from without. 在今天，人民的任务是拯救这个国家及其制度免受外部破坏。
To us there has come a time, in the midst of swift happenings, to pause for a moment and take stock- to recall what our place in history has been, and to rediscover what we are and what we may be. If we do not, we risk the real peril of isolation, the real peril of inaction. 在瞬息万变的时代，我们需要暂停片刻，回顾我们在历史中的地位，重新发现我们是什么以及我们可能成为什么。如果不这样做，我们将面临孤立的真正危险，不作为的真正危险。
Lives of Nations are determined not by the count of years, but by the lifetime of the human spirit. The life of a man is threescore years and ten: a little more, a little less. The life of a Nation is the fullness of the measure of its will to live. 国家的生命不是由年数决定的，而是由人类精神的寿命决定的。人的寿命是七十岁：多一点，少一点。国家的生命是其生存意志的完整体现。
There are men who doubt this. There are men who believe that democracy, as a form of government and a frame of life, is limited or measured by a kind of mystical and artificial fate that, for some unexplained reason, tyranny and slavery have become the surging wave of the future—and that freedom is an ebbing tide. 有些人对此表示怀疑。有些人认为，民主作为一种政府形式和生活框架，受到某种神秘和人为命运的限制——不知何故，暴政和奴役已成为未来的浪潮，而自由正在退潮。
But we Americans know that this is not true. 但我们美国人知道这不是真的。
Eight years ago, when the life of this Republic seemed frozen by a fatalistic terror, we proved that this is not true. We were in the midst of shock—but we acted. We acted quickly, boldly, decisively. 八年前，当这个共和国的生命似乎被宿命论的恐惧冻结时，我们证明了这不是真的。我们处于震惊之中——但我们采取了行动。我们迅速、勇敢、果断地采取了行动。
These later years have been living years—fruitful years for the people of this democracy. For they have brought to us greater security and, I hope, a better understanding that life's ideals are to be measured in other than material things. 后来的这些年是活生生的岁月——对这个民主国家的人民来说是富有成效的岁月。因为它们给我们带来了更大的安全感，我希望，也带来了对生活理想不应仅仅用物质来衡量的更好理解。
Most vital to our present and to our future is this experience of a democracy which successfully survived crisis at home; put away many evil things; built new structures on enduring lines; and, through it all, maintained the fact of its democracy. 对我们现在和未来最重要的是，这个民主国家成功度过了国内危机；摒弃了许多邪恶的东西；在持久的基础上建立了新的结构；并且在这一切中，保持了民主的事实。
For action has been taken within the three-way framework of the Constitution of the United States. The coordinate branches of the Government continue freely to function. The Bill of Rights remains inviolate. The freedom of elections is wholly maintained. Prophets of the downfall of American democracy have seen their dire predictions come to naught. 因为行动是在美国宪法的三权分立框架内采取的。政府的各个分支继续自由运作。权利法案仍然不可侵犯。选举自由完全得以维护。预言美国民主将垮台的人，他们可怕的预言已经落空。
No, democracy is not dying. 不，民主没有消亡。
We know it because we have seen it revive—and grow. 我们知道这一点，因为我们看到它复兴了——并且成长了。
We know it cannot die—because it is built on the unhampered initiative of individual men and women joined together in a common enterprise—an enterprise undertaken and carried through by the free expression of a free majority. 我们知道它不会消亡——因为它建立在个人男女不受阻碍的主动性之上，他们共同参与一项共同事业——一项通过自由多数的自由表达进行的事业。
We know it because democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men's enlightened will. 我们知道这一点，因为民主是所有政府形式中唯一能够充分发挥人类开明意志力量的形式。
We know it because democracy alone has constructed an unlimited civilization capable of infinite progress in the improvement of human life. 我们知道这一点，因为只有民主建立了一个无限的文明，能够在改善人类生活方面取得无限进步。
We know it because, if we look below the surface, we sense it still spreading on every continent—for it is the most humane, the most advanced, and in the end the most unconquerable of all forms of human society. 我们知道这一点，因为如果我们深入表面，我们会感觉到它仍在各大洲蔓延——因为它是所有人类社会形式中最人道、最先进、最终最不可战胜的。
A Nation, like a person, has a body—a body that must be fed and clothed and housed, invigorated and rested, in a manner that measures up to the standards of our time. 一个国家，就像一个人一样，有一个身体——这个身体必须得到喂养、穿衣和居住，必须得到激励和休息，达到我们这个时代的标准。
A Nation, like a person, has a mind—a mind that must be kept informed and alert, that must know itself, that understands the hopes and the needs of its neighbors—all the other Nations that live within the narrowing circle of the world. 一个国家，就像一个人一样，有一个心灵——这个心灵必须保持信息灵通和警觉，必须了解自己，理解邻居——所有生活在这个日益缩小的世界圈子里的其他国家——的希望和需求。
A Nation, like a person, has something deeper, something more permanent, something larger than the sum of all its parts. It is that something which matters most to its future—which calls forth the most sacred guarding of its present. 一个国家，就像一个人一样，有更深层的东西，更持久的东西，比其所有部分的总和更大的东西。正是这种东西对其未来最为重要——它要求对其现在进行最神圣的守护。
It is a thing for which we find it difficult—even impossible to hit upon a single, simple word. 我们很难——甚至不可能——用一个简单的词来描述它。
And yet, we all understand what it is—the spirit—the faith of America. It is the product of centuries. It was born in the multitudes of those who came from many lands—some of high degree, but mostly plain people—who sought here, early and late, to find freedom more freely. 然而，我们都理解它是什么——精神——美国的信念。它是几个世纪的产物。它诞生于来自许多土地的众多人民之中——有些人地位显赫，但大多是普通民众——他们早早晚晚来到这里，寻求更自由的自由。
The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history. It is human history. It permeated the ancient life of early peoples. It blazed anew in the Middle Ages. It was written in Magna Charta. 民主的愿望并非人类历史中最近才出现的阶段。它就是人类历史。它渗透在早期民族的古老生活中。它在中世纪重新燃起。它被写入大宪章。
In the Americas its impact has been irresistible. America has been the New World in all tongues, and to all peoples, not because this continent was a new-found land, but because all those who came here believed they could create upon this continent a new life—a life that should be new in freedom. 在美洲，它的影响是不可抗拒的。美国在所有语言和所有民族中都是新世界，不是因为这片大陆是新发现的土地，而是因为所有来到这里的人都相信他们可以在这片大陆上创造一种新生活——一种应该在自由中焕然一新的生活。
Its vitality was written into our own Mayflower Compact, into the Declaration of Independence, into the Constitution of the United States, into the Gettysburg Address. 它的生命力被写入了我们自己的五月花号公约、独立宣言、美国宪法和葛底斯堡演说。
Those who first came here to carry out the longings of their spirit, and the millions who followed, and the stock that sprang from them—all have moved forward constantly and consistently toward an ideal which in itself has gained stature and clarity with each generation. 那些最初来到这里实现他们精神渴望的人，以及数百万跟随他们而来的人，还有他们所产生的后代——所有人都始终如一地朝着一个理想前进，这个理想本身随着每一代人而变得更加崇高和清晰。
The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth. 共和国的希望不能永远容忍不应有的贫困或自私的财富。
We know that we still have far to go; that we must more greatly build the security and the opportunity and the knowledge of every citizen, in the measure justified by the resources and the capacity of the land. 我们知道我们还有很长的路要走；我们必须在土地资源和能力所证明的范围内，更大程度地建设每个公民的安全、机会和知识。
But it is not enough to achieve these purposes alone. It is not enough to clothe and feed the body of this Nation, to instruct, and inform its mind. For there is also the spirit. And of the three, the greatest is the spirit. 但仅仅实现这些目标是不够的。仅仅给这个国家的身体提供衣食住行，仅仅教导和告知它的心灵是不够的。因为还有精神。在这三者中，精神是最伟大的。
Without the body and the mind, as all men know, the Nation could not live. 正如所有人都知道的，没有身体和心灵，国家就无法生存。
But if the spirit of America were killed, even though the Nation's body and mind, constricted in an alien world, lived on, the America we know would have perished. 但如果美国的精神被扼杀，即使国家的身体和心灵在一个陌生的世界中苟延残喘，我们所知道的美国也已经灭亡了。
That spirit—that faith—speaks to us in our daily lives in ways often unnoticed, because they seem so obvious. It speaks to us here in the Capital of the Nation. It speaks to us through the processes of governing in the sovereignties of 48 States. It speaks to us in our counties, in our cities, in our towns, and in our villages. It speaks to us from the other Nations of the hemisphere, and from those across the seas—the enslaved, as well as the free. Sometimes we fail to hear or heed these voices of freedom because to us the privilege of our freedom is such an old, old story. 那种精神——那种信念——在我们的日常生活中以常常不被注意的方式向我们说话，因为它们似乎太明显了。它在国家的首都向我们说话。它通过48个州的主权治理过程向我们说话。它在我们的县、我们的城市、我们的城镇和村庄向我们说话。它从半球的其他国家和海洋彼岸的国家——被奴役者和自由者——向我们说话。有时我们听不到或不听这些自由的声音，因为对我们来说，自由的特权已是老生常谈。
The destiny of America was proclaimed in words of prophecy spoken by our first President in his first Inaugural in 1789-words almost directed, it would seem, to this year of 1941: "The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered. . . deeply, . . . finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people." 美国的命运在1789年我们第一任总统的第一次就职演说中以预言的语言宣告——这些话似乎是直接针对1941年这一年的："维护自由的神圣火焰和共和政体的命运，理所当然地被认为……深刻地……最终……寄托在美国人民手中的实验之上。"
If you and I in this later day lose that sacred fire—if we let it be smothered with doubt and fear- then we shall reject the destiny which Washington strove so valiantly and so triumphantly to establish. The preservation of the spirit and faith of the Nation does, and will, furnish the highest justification for every sacrifice that we may make in the cause of national defense. 如果我们在今天失去了那神圣的火焰——如果我们让它被怀疑和恐惧窒息——那么我们将拒绝华盛顿勇敢而成功地努力建立的命运。维护国家的精神和信念确实并将为我们在国防事业中做出的每一项牺牲提供最高的正当理由。
In the face of great perils never before encountered, our strong purpose is to protect and to perpetuate the integrity of democracy. 面对前所未有的巨大危险，我们坚定的目标是保护和维护民主的完整性。
For this we muster the spirit of America, and the faith of America. 为此，我们汇聚美国的精神和美国的信念。
We do not retreat. We are not content to stand still. As Americans, we go forward, in the service of our country, by the will of God. 我们不退缩。我们不满足于停滞不前。作为美国人，我们在上帝的意志下，为国家服务，向前迈进。