个人只有将自己置于自己的时代中，才能理解自己的经历并衡量自己的命运，只有意识到自己处境中所有个体的机会，才能知道自己的生活机会。

The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals.

社会学的想象力使拥有者能够根据其对各种个人的内心生活和外部职业生涯的意义来理解更大的历史场景。

To be aware of the idea of social structure and to use it with sensibility is to be capable of tracing such linkages among a great variety of milieux.

意识到社会结构的概念并敏感地使用它，就是能够在各种环境中追踪这种联系。

The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of men to orient themselves in accordance with cherished values. And which values? Even when they do not panic, men often sense that older ways of feeling and thinking have collapsed and that newer beginnings are ambiguous to the point of moral stasis.

The first fruit of this imagination - and the first lesson of the social science that embodies it - is the idea that the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by locating himself within his period, that he can know his own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his circumstances.

The individual's biography is shaped by the historical and social context in which it is embedded.

个人的传记是由其所嵌入的历史和社会背景塑造的。

The sociological imagination is the most fruitful form of self-consciousness.

社会学的想象力是最富有成果的自我意识形式。

In a world of big organizations, the individual feels trapped and powerless.

在一个大组织的世界里，个人感到被困和无助。

The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of men to orient themselves in accordance with cherished values. And which values? Even when they do not panic, men often sense that older ways of feeling and thinking have collapsed and that newer beginnings are ambiguous to the point of moral stasis.

历史的塑造现在超过了人们根据珍视的价值观来定位自己的能力。哪些价值观？即使没有恐慌，人们也常常感觉到旧的感觉和思维方式已经崩溃，而新的开始模糊到道德停滞的地步。

Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them - and then, the opportunity to choose.

自由不仅仅是随心所欲的机会；也不仅仅是在既定选项之间选择的机会。自由首先是制定可用选择的机会，对它们进行辩论——然后，是选择的机会。

The first fruit of this imagination - and the first lesson of the social science that embodies it - is the idea that the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by locating himself within his period, that he can know his own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his circumstances.

这种想象力的第一个成果——以及体现它的社会科学的第一个教训——是个人只有将自己置于他所处的时代中，才能理解自己的经历并衡量自己的命运，只有意识到所有处于他这种境况的个体的机会，他才能知道自己的生活机会。

Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them—and then, the opportunity to choose.