西奧多·羅斯福/Theodore Roosevelt
西奧多·羅斯福（1858—1919），美國第26任總統、作家、探險家和軍事家，畢業於哈佛大學，曾發表《勤奮地生活》演說，旨在針對19世紀末美國驕奢**逸、貪圖享樂之風盛行，藉此文以遏製當時的腐敗現象，這篇《艱辛的人生》也反映了他這種反對怠惰安逸、崇尚奮鬥人生的思想。
A life of slothful ease,a life of that peace which springs merely f rom lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things,is a s little worthy of a nation as an individual.
We do not admire the man of timid peace.We admire the man who embod ies victorious efforts,the man who never wrongs his neighbor,who is pr ompt to help a friend,but who has those virile qualities necessary to w in in the stern strife of actual life.It is hard to fail,but it is wor se never to have tried to succeed.In this life we get nothing save by e ffort.Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has be en effort stored up in the past.A man can be free from the necessity of work only by the fact that he or his fathers before him have worked to g ood purpose.If the freedom thus purchased is used aright,and the man s till does actual work,though of a different kind,whether as a writer o r a general,whether in the field of politics or in the field of explora tion and adventure,he shows he deserves his good fortune.
But if he treats this period of freedom from the need of actual labo r as a period,not of preparation,but of mere enjoyment,even though pe rhaps not of vicious enjoyment,he shows that he is simply a cumberer on the earth's surface;and he surely unfits himself to hold his own place with his fellows,if the need to do so should again arise.A mere life o f ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life,and,above all,it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in t he world.
As it is with the individual,so it is with the nation.It is a base untruth to say that happy is the nation that has no history.Thrice happ y is the nation that has a glorious history.Far better it is to dare mi ghty things,to win glorious triumphs,even though checkered by failure,than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suf fer much,because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither vict ory nor defeat.
一種怠惰安逸的生活，一種僅僅是由於缺少追尋偉大事物的願望或能力而導致的悠閑，這對國家與個人都是沒有價值的。
我們不欣賞那種怯懦安逸的人。我們欽佩那種表現出奮力向上的人，那種永不冤枉鄰人，能隨時幫助朋友，但是也具有那些剛健的性質，足以在實際生活的嚴酷鬥爭中獲取勝利的人。失敗是艱難的，但是從不曾努力去爭取成功，卻更為糟糕。在人的一生中，任何的收獲都要通過努力去得到。目前不用作任何的努力，隻是意味著在過去有過努力的積蓄。一個人不必工作，除非他或他的祖先曾經努力工作過，並取得了豐厚的收獲。如果他能把換取到的此類的自由加以正確地運用，仍然做些實際的工作，盡管那些工作是屬於另一類的，不論是作一名作家還是將軍，不論是在政界還是在探險和冒險方麵做些事情，都表明他沒有辜負自己的好運。
但是，如果他將這段不需從事實際工作的自由時期，不用於準備，而僅僅是用於享樂，盡管他所從事的或許並非邪惡的享樂，那就表明了他隻是地球表麵上的一個贅疣，而且他肯定無法在同僚之中維持自己的地位，如果那種需要再度出現的話。安逸的生活終究不是一種令人很滿意的生活，而且，最主要的是，過那種生活的人最終肯定沒有能力擔當起世上之重任。
於個人如此，對國家也是這樣。有人說一個沒有曆史的國家是得天獨厚的，這是卑鄙的謊言。一種得天獨厚的優越感來源於一個國家具有光榮的曆史。冒險去從事偉大的事業，贏得光榮的勝利，即使其中摻雜著失敗，那也遠勝於與那些既沒有享受多大快樂也沒有遭受多大痛苦的平庸之輩為伍，因為他們生活在一個既享受不到勝利也遭遇不到失敗的灰暗境界裏。