而且，选择不去同情的人会“养育”真正的怪物。
就算我们自己没有亲自做出邪恶的事情，我们对于邪恶的无动于衷就等同于和它同谋。
十八岁时，为了某种不可名状的追求，我踏上了古典文学的探险道路，学到了很多东西；其中之一就是希腊作家普鲁塔克的这句话：我们在内心的所得，将改变外界的现实。
这句惊人的宣言却每天都被我们的生活证实无数次。
在某种程度上，它表达了我们与外面世界无法脱离的联系；它道出这样一个事实，仅仅是我们自身的存在，就已经触碰到了他人的生活。
但是，哈佛大学2008届的毕业生们，你们又对他人的生活触及多少呢？
你们的智慧、你们应对高难度工作的才能、你们所受到的教育，都赋予你们独一无二的身份，以及独一无二的责任。
即使你们的国籍将你们区隔开来。
你们中的大多数都拥有着世界上仅存的超能力。
你们投票的方式，你们生活的方式，你们抗议的方式，你们对于政府施加的压力，都具有超乎寻常的影响力。
那是你们的特权，也是你们背负的重任。
如果你选择用你的身份和影响力去为那些没有发言权的人呐喊；如果你选择不仅与强者为伍，更要同情弱者；
如果你选择保留想象的能力，设身处地为不如你的人着想；那么，不仅仅是你的家人会为你自豪，更有成千上万的、因为你而生活得更好的人会为你欢呼。
我们并不需要魔法来改造世界。在内心深处，我们已经拥有了所需的所有力量，那就是拥有想象世界变得更好的力量。
我的演讲要接近尾声了。
最后，我对你们还有一个期望，在我21岁的时候我就怀有这个期望。
在毕业典礼上与我坐在一起的朋友们，后来都成了我一生的挚友。
他们是我的孩子们的教父和教母，也是我陷入困境时可以寻求帮助的人。他们是如此宽容的朋友，就连用他们的名字命名食死徒的时候也没有起诉我。
在毕业典礼上，我们的心因澎湃的激情紧密相连，我们拥有永远无法再来的共同经历，当然也因为如果我们中的某人有朝一日当选为英国首相，那我们持有的合影照片肯定会价值不菲。
因此，今天我给你们的最好祝福就是希望你们能拥有亲密的朋友。
明天，我希望就算你们记不起我说过的任何一个字，你还是能够想起哲学家塞内加的一句至理名言。我当时没有顺着事业的阶梯向上攀爬，转而与他在古典文学的殿堂相遇，他的古老智慧给了我人生的启迪:
人生就像故事，不在于漫长，而在于精彩。
我祝愿你们都生活幸福，谢谢大家。
Social Responsibility and Friendship
By J.K. Rowling
What is more, those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters.
For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives.
It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing.
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives?
Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities.
Even your nationality sets you apart.
The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower.
The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders.
That is your privilege, and your burden.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless;
if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change.
We do not need magic to transform our world; we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
I am nearly finished.
I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21.
The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life.
They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of real trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters.
At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.
So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships.
And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
I wish you all very good lives. Thank you very much.
整理：2024年5月20日于昆明马军场小区
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