千里征尘

简介

王尔德（Oscar Wilde，1854-1900）不仅是诗人、小说家，剧作家、批评家，而且是有史以来敢于承认自己是天才的天才之一。他在进纽约海关时对海关官员说：“ 除了天才之外，我没有什么可申报的。”（“I have nothing to declare except my genius.”）

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

愤世嫉俗者是一个知道所有东西的价格、却不知道它们的价值的人。

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A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

梦想家只能在月光下找到自己的路，他的惩罚是第一个看见黎明。

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A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

不够真诚是危险的，太真诚则绝对是致命的。

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A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

一个人在选择他的敌人时，再小心也不为过。


***



A poet can survive everything but a misprint.



一个诗人什么都可以容忍，印刷错误除外。



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All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.



所有女人都会变得像她们的母亲一样，这是女人的悲剧。但没有男人变得像他们的父亲，这是男人的悲剧。



***



Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much.



永远要宽恕你的敌人。没有什么比这更能让他们心烦的了。



***



America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.



美国是唯一一个直接从野蛮进入颓废、中间没有经过文明阶段的社会。



***



Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.



要避免争论，争论总是俗不可耐，而且常常令人信服。



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As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.



只要一个女人看上去比她自己的女儿小十岁，她就一定会心满意足。



***



Bad artists always admire each other's work.



糟糕的画家总是欣赏彼此的作品。



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Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.



男女之间不可能存在友谊，有的只是爱恨情仇。



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Conscience and cowardice are really the same things.



良心和怯懦其实是一回事。



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Dammit sir, it's your duty to get married. You can't be always living for pleasure.



该死，先生，结婚是你的职责，你不能总是逍遥快活。



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Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.



民主就是指人民用人民的大头棒打击人民。



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Don't give a woman advice; one should never give a woman anything she can't wear in the evening.



不要给女人忠告；决不要给女人任何她晚上不能穿戴的东西。



***



Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.



教育是一件可敬的事，但要时刻牢记，没有什么值得知道的事是教得会的。



***



Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.



经验是一个人给自己所犯的错误取的名字。



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Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.



时装丑陋得完全令人无法容忍，以至于我们必须每6个月就改变它的样式。



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How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.



女人如何能期望会从男人那里获得幸福，如果他坚持把她当作一个完全正常的人。



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I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where people don't talk politics.



我喜欢政治晚会，这是唯一人们不谈政治的地方。



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I am not young enough to know everything.



我还没有年轻到什么都懂的地步。



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I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I’m saying.



我简直太聪明了，有时连我自己都不知道自己在说什么。



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I can resist everything except temptation.



我可以抗拒一切，诱惑除外。



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I have made an important discovery…that alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, produces all the effects of intoxication.



我有一个重大发现——如果摄入足量酒精，就会产生各种陶醉的效果。



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I like talking to a brick wall, it's the only thing in the world that never contradicts me.



我喜欢对一堵墙说话，世界上只有它不会反驳我。



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I love acting. It is so much more real than life.



我喜欢演戏。与人生相比，演戏更真实。



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I often take exercise. Why only yesterday I had breakfast in bed.



我经常锻炼。只是昨天我是在床上吃的早饭。



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I think that God, in creating Man, somewhat overestimated his ability.



我想，上帝在创造人类时高估了他的能力。



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I was working on the proof of one of my poems all morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.



我整个早上都在校对自己的一首诗，我去掉了一个逗号。下午我又把它加了上去。



***



Ignorance is like a delicate flower: touch it and the bloom is gone.



无知就像是一朵精致的花朵：摸一下，它就消失了。



***



In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.



世界上只有两种悲剧，一种是一个人没有得到他想要的，另一种是他得到了。



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It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.



这是一件很悲哀的事——如今几乎没有无用的信息。



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It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.



美丽要比善良好，善良要比难看强。



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It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.



所有人类的重大问题都有一个共同点：没有点幽默和疯狂是没办法解决的。



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It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.



争论者损失的只是智力。



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It is very easy to endure the difficulties of one's enemies. It is the successes of one's friends that are hard to bear.



来自敌人的困难可以忍，来自朋友的成功则无可忍。



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Life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.



人生就是一件蠢事追着另一件蠢事而来，而爱情则是两个蠢东西追来追去。



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Like dear St Francis of Assisi I am wedded to Poverty: but in my case the marriage is not a success.



就像亲爱的圣芳济一样，我也和贫穷联姻，但我的婚姻并不成功。



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Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.



结婚是想象战胜了理智，再婚是希望战胜了经验。



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Music makes one feel so romantic—at least it always gets on one's nerves, which is the same thing nowadays.



音乐让人感觉非常浪漫，至少让人感觉不安，如今两者是一回事。



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No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.



没有女人应该对她的年龄十分准确。这显得有些精于算计。



***



One should never trust a woman who tells her real age. If she tells that, she'll tell anything.



一个人决不应该相信说出自己真实年龄的女人。如果她把这都说出来了，那她什么都会说。



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Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.



请别开枪打死那个钢琴师，他已经尽力了。



***



Science is the record of dead religions.



科学是死去的宗教的记录。



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Tell the cook of this restaurant with my compliments that these are the very worst sandwiches in the whole world, and that when I ask for a watercress sandwich I do not mean a loaf with a field in the middle of it.



请转告我对这家饭店厨师的赞誉，这是全世界最糟糕的三明治了，还有，我点的是豆瓣菜三明治，我并不是要面包片中夹一块菜田。



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The basis of optimism is sheer terror.



乐观的基础完全是恐惧。



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The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden…It ends with Revelations.



《生命之书》始于一座花园里的一男一女……它最后以《启示录》告终。



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The difference between journalism and literature is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.



报纸和文学的区别是，报纸没法读，而文学则没人读。



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The only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past while every sinner has a future.



圣人和罪人的唯一区别是，每一个圣人都有过去，而每一个罪人都有未来。



***



The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.



对于忠告，你所能做的，就是把它奉送给别人，忠告从来就不是给自己准备的。



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The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.



摆脱诱惑的唯一方法是屈服于它。



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The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.



演出相当成功，但观众则是一场灾难。



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The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.



公众极其宽容，他们可以宽容一切，天才除外。



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There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.



世界上只有一件比被人谈论更糟糕的事，那就是没人谈论你。



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Thirty five is a very attractive age; London society is full of women who have of their own free choice remained thirty-five for years.



三十五岁是一个非常有吸引力的年龄；伦敦社交圈内满是这样好多年一直保持三十五岁的女人，她们可以自由地挑来选去。



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This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.



悬念是可怕的。我希望它一直延续下去。



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Time is a waste of money.



时间是一种对金钱的浪费。



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To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.



失去一个父母可以看成是一种不幸；失去双亲看上去就像是一种粗心了。



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To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.



爱自己就是开始一场延续一生的罗曼史。



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True friends stab you in the front.



当面扎刀的是真朋友。



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When good Americans die they go to Paris. When bad Americans die they go to America.



当美国的好人死了，他们就去巴黎。当美国的坏蛋死了，他们就去美国。



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All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.



所有糟糕的诗歌都源于真情实感。



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When I was young I used to think that money was the most important thing in life. Now that I am old, I know it is.



当我年轻时，我以为金钱是人生中最重要的东西。现在我老了，我知道这是真的。



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When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.



当天神想要惩罚我们，他们就答应我们的祈祷。



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Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.



每当人们赞同我时，我总希望自己一定是错了。



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Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes.



恭维话从来没有让女人缴械，但可以让男人缴械。这就是性别差异。



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Women have a much better time than men in this world. There are far more things forbidden to them.



女人在世上的日子要比男人好过得多。她们有太多禁忌。



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Women love men for their defects; if men have enough of them women will forgive them everything, even their gigantic intellects.



女人因为男人的缺点而爱男人；如果男人的缺点足够多，女人什么事都可以原谅他们，哪怕是他们的智力。



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Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.



女人代表着物质战胜了理智，正如男人代表着理智战胜了道德。



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Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot.



年轻人想要有信仰，但他们却没有；老年人不想要有信仰，但却办不到。





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