AMERICAN DREAM
美国梦
[The american Dream is] that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.
-----James Truslow Adams,The Epic of America
[美国梦]是一片土地的梦想,在这片土地上,每个人的生活应该更美好,更丰富,更充实,每个人只要有能力,够勤奋都可以获得机会。对于欧洲上层阶级来说,这是一个难以充分解释的梦想,我们当中有太多的人已经对此感到厌倦和不信任。这不是一个仅仅拥有汽车和高收入的梦想,而是一个对于社会秩序的梦想,在这里,每个男人和女人能使其才能得以充分施展,并因此获得认可,而不是因为他的出生或社会地位。
-----詹姆斯·特鲁斯洛·亚当斯,美国史诗
The sentiment in the U.S. declaration of Independence may be the quintessential expression of the American Dream:"We hold These truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life , Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
美国《独立宣言》中的这种情绪可能是美国梦的典型表达:“我们认为这些真理是不言而喻的,人人生而平等,造物主赋予他们某些不可剥夺的权利, 其中包括生命、自由和追求幸福。”