This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

那是我最接近死亡的時(shí)候, 我還希望這也是以后的幾十年最接近的一次。從死亡線上又活了過(guò)來(lái), 死亡對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)，只是一個(gè)有用但是純粹是知識(shí)上的概念的時(shí)候，我可以更肯定一點(diǎn)地對(duì)你們說(shuō)：

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

沒(méi)有人愿意死, 即使人們想上天堂, 人們也不會(huì)為了去那里而死。但是死亡是我們每個(gè)人共同的終點(diǎn)。從來(lái)沒(méi)有人能夠逃脫它。也應(yīng)該如此。 因?yàn)樗劳鼍褪巧凶詈玫囊粋€(gè)發(fā)明。它將舊的清除以便給新的讓路。你們現(xiàn)在是新的, 但是從現(xiàn)在開(kāi)始不久以后, 你們將會(huì)逐漸的變成舊的然后被清除。我很抱歉這很戲劇性, 但是這十分的真實(shí)。

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notion

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.