谢谢你们，谢谢你们。这...100多年过去了，你们终于迎来了一位英国演讲者。
What took you so long? Did that little disagreement of 1776 really rankle so much? And why now? Is it because British election campaigns only last four weeks?
是什么让你们等了这么长时间?难道是因为1776年那次小小分歧而耿耿于怀?那为什么又选择现在呢?难道是因为英国的大选仅仅持续了四个星期?无论出于何种原因，能来到这里让我倍感荣幸。
For whatever reason, it is an honour to be here and to say to the Yale College Class of 2008: you did it;you came through; from all of us to you:congratulations.
耶鲁大学2008届的毕业生们，我想对你们说：你们顺利完成了学业，你们去的了成功，我们大家都要恭喜你们，你们干得非常好。
The invitation to a former British Prime Minister to address a college which boasts five former Presidents, many former Vice Presidents and Senators too numerous to mention, is either to give me an exaggerated sense of my own importance or you a reduced sense of yours.
贵校培养出了5位美国总统、很多副总统和难以数计的参议院，却邀请一位前英国首相来发表演讲，这要么是夸大了我的重要性，要么就是减小了你们的重要性。
It was Churchill or Oscar Wilde—and there is a difference—who called us two nations divided by a common language and so we are.
是丘吉尔还是奥斯卡•王尔德——这两人当然是有区别的——把英美两国说成是由一种相同的语言划分的两个不同的国家，你们可以从我今天的出场来判断这一点，事实确实如此。
Here I am at Yale and set to come back for the fall semester. My old Oxford tutor was, I'm afraid, horrified to hear I had been taken on by Yale. His worries were all for Yale I may say. He said: "I only hope for their sake you are going there to learn rather than teach."
现在我来到耶鲁，并打算今年秋天来这里任职。我恐怕，我在牛津的老导师听到我在耶鲁任职会感到惊骇。我可以说，他的担忧全是为了耶鲁。他说：“为了耶鲁，我只希望你是去那儿学习，而不是教书。”
