被他人注意、被他人关怀,得到他人的同情、赞美和支持,这就是我们想要从一切行为中得到的价值。富有的人忘情于财富,是因为财富能够自然而然地为他吸引世界的目光。穷人则完全相反,他们以贫穷为耻。他们感觉到自己生活在世界的目光之外。一旦感到自己被世界所忽略,人类天性中最强烈的欲望将必然难以得到满足。穷人进出家门都不为人所注意,即使在闹市,他也会像独处在家一样默默无闻。而名流显贵们则不然,他们一直为世界所瞩目。所有的人都渴望能够一睹尊颜。他们的行为成为公众关心的对象。他们的片言只语、举手投足都不会被人忽略。
亚当·斯密
经济学的主要创立者

亚当·斯密(Adam Smith),1723年6月5日出生在苏格兰法夫郡(County Fife)的柯卡尔迪(Kirkcaldy) ,英国经济学家、哲学家、作家,经济学的主要创立者。

我经常对事业感到恐慌,周日下午,晚霞洒满天空,我的理想和现实的差距却是这样残酷,令我沮丧的只想抱头痛哭。

For me they normally happen, these career crises, often, actually, on a Sunday evening, just as the sun is starting to set, and the gap between my hopes for myself and the reality of my life starts to diverge so painfully that I normally end up weeping into a pillow.

阿兰·德波顿名人名言哲理格言警句语录
阿兰·德波顿

我提出这件事是因为,我认为不只有我这么感觉。你可能不这么认为,但我感觉我们活在一个充满事业恐慌的时代,就在我们认为我们已经理解我们的人生和事业时,真实便来恐吓我们。

I'm mentioning all this -- I'm mentioning all this because I think this is not merely a personal problem; you may think I'm wrong in this, but I think we live in an age when our lives are regularly punctuated by career crises, by moments when what we thought we knew -- about our lives, about our careers -- comes into contact with a threatening sort of reality.

阿兰·德波顿名人名言哲理格言警句语录
阿兰·德波顿

现在或许比以前更容易过上好生活,但却比以前更难保持冷静,或不为事业感到焦虑。今天我想要检视,我们对事业感到焦虑的一些原因,为何我们会变成事业焦虑的囚徒。不时抱头痛哭,折磨人的因素之一是,我们身边的那些势利鬼。

It's perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living. It's perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety. I want to look now, if I may, at some of the reasons why we might be feeling anxiety about our careers. Why we might be victims of these career crises, as we're weeping softly into our pillows. One of the reasons why we might be suffering is that we are surrounded by snobs.

阿兰·德波顿名人名言哲理格言警句语录
阿兰·德波顿

对那些来访牛津大学的外国友人,我有一个坏消息,这里的人都很势利。有时候,英国以外的人会想象,势利是英国人特有的个性,来自那些乡间别墅和头衔爵位。坏消息是,并不只是这样,势利是一个全球性的问题,我们是个全球性的组织,这是个全球性的问题,它确实存在。势利是什么?,势利是以一小部分的你,来判别你的全部价值,那就是势利。

In a way, I've got some bad news, particularly to anybody who's come to Oxford from abroad. There's a real problem with snobbery, because sometimes people from outside the U.K. imagine that snobbery is a distinctively U.K. phenomenon, fixated on country houses and titles. The bad news is that's not true. Snobbery is a global phenomenon; we area global organization, this is a global phenomenon. What is a snob? A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you, and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. That is snobbery.

阿兰·德波顿名人名言哲理格言警句语录
阿兰·德波顿

今日最主要的势利,就是对职业的势利。你在派对中不用一分钟就能体会到,当你被问到这个21世纪初,最有代表性的问题:你是做什么的?你的答案将会决定对方接下来的反应,对方可能对你在场感到荣幸,或是开始看表,然后想个借口离开。

The dominant kind of snobbery that exists nowadays is job snobbery. You encounter it within minutes at a party, when you get asked that famous iconic question of the early 21st century, "What do you do?" According to how you answer that question, people are either incredibly delighted to see you, or look at their watch and make their excuses.

阿兰·德波顿名人名言哲理格言警句语录
阿兰·德波顿

势利鬼的另一个极端,是你的母亲。

Now, the opposite of a snob is your mother.

阿兰·德波顿名人名言哲理格言警句语录
阿兰·德波顿

不一定是你我的母亲,而是一个理想母亲的想象,一个永远义无反顾的爱你,不在乎你是否功成名就的人,不幸地,大部分世人都不怀有这种母爱,大部分世人决定要花费多少时间,给于多少爱,不一定是浪漫的那种爱,虽然那也包括在内,世人所愿意给我们的关爱、尊重,取决于我们的社会地位。

Not necessarily your mother, or indeed mine, but, as it were, the ideal mother, somebody who doesn't care about your achievements. Unfortunately, most people are not our mothers. Most people make a strict correlation between how much time, and if you like, love -- not romantic love, though that may be something -- but love in general, respect --they are willing to accord us, that will be strictly defined by our position in the social hierarchy.

阿兰·德波顿名人名言哲理格言警句语录
阿兰·德波顿