同学们：
你们好！
在这次欢庆你们毕业，欢送一些同学离开校园的场合，我说两句话，作为你们大学生活的结语。
第一句更多是说马上要走向工作岗位的同学的，一句大实话：社会和学校不一样。
校园里，个人努力也起作用，但作用更大的其实是天分。老师不要求你们的物质回报，只要你考试成绩好，人格上没有大毛病，基本上会获得老师的欢心，就会获得以分数表现的奖励。在这个意义上，大学基本上是一个“贤人政治”或“精英政治”的环境，更像家庭，评价体系基本上由老师来定，以一种中央集权的方式，奖励的是你的智力。
会则不同。社会更多是一个利益交换的场所，是一个市场，是“平民政治”。评价的主要不是你的智力优越与否（尽管你的聪明和智慧仍然可以帮助你），而是你能否拿出什么别人想要的东西。这个标准不再由中心----教师确定，而是分散----由众多消费者确定的。因此，尽管定价178元，不到10天，3000册英文版《哈利波特与凤凰令》在北京新华书店已经脱销，而许多学者的著作一辈子也卖不了这么多，甚至只能“养在深闺人未识”；也因此，才有了“傻子瓜子”年广九，才有了“搞导弹的不如卖茶叶蛋的”，才有了IT产业中的退学生现象。这种“脑体倒挂”不完美，但它恰恰表明了市场的标准。
类的局限----你甭指望通过教育或其它，把消费者都变成钱钟书或纳什。因此，我们的同学千万不要把自己16年来习惯了的校园标准原封不动地带进社会，否则你就会发现“楚材晋不用”，只能像李白那样用“天生我材必有用”来安慰自己，更极端地，甚至成为一个与社会、与市场格格不入的人。
管社会和市场的手是看不见的，但它讲的却是看得见摸得着的；它不讲期货，讲的都是将之转为现货。你可以批评它短视，但它通常还是不会，而且没有义务，等待你成长和成熟。它把每个进入社会的人都当作平等的，不考虑你刚毕业，没有经验。如果你失去了一次机会，你就失去了；不像在学校，会让你补考，或者到老师那里求个情，改个分数。“北大学生有潜力，有后劲”，别人这样说行，你们自己则千万不要说，也不要相信。这种说法不是安慰剂，在某种程度上，实际上就是说你不行，至少现在不行。如果你有什么素质，有什么潜力，有什么后劲，你就给我拿出来，你就得给我成实打实的东西----也许是一份合同起草，也许是一次成功诉讼。
科学生，大学四年，往往是同历史上最激动人心的一些事件和人物交往，在同古今中外的大师“会谈”。你们知道了苏格拉底审判，知道了马伯利诉麦迪逊，知道了“大宪章”等等，你们还可以评点孔、孟、老、庄，议论柏拉图、亚里士多德，甚至“舍我其谁也”。大学的文科教育，往往会令许多人从骨子里更喜欢那种激动人心的时刻，甚至使人膨胀起来。但这不是，而且也不可能是绝大多数人的生活，而只是学院中想像的生活。我们每个人都只能生活在日常的琐细之中。
因此，第二句话，要安分守已，这是对每个同学说的。
这句话对于我们这个时代也许过时了，但对你们，可能还不过时。因为我从来也不担心北大的毕业生会没有理想以及理想是否远大，而更多担心你们能否从容远大，而更多担心你们能否从容坦然面对平凡的生活，特别是当年轻时的理想变得日益遥远、模糊和暗淡起来的时候；还因为，我要说，几乎----如果还不是全部的话----每一个雄心勃勃的人都注定不可能完全实现他的理想。
我当然希望而且相信，你们当中能涌现杰出的政治家、企业家、法律家、学问家，但只可能是少数----多了就挤不下了，多了也就不那么值钱了----边际效用总是递减的。无论在世俗的眼光还是在自我评价中，绝大多数人都必定是不那么成功的。
但是，我们要知道，成功并不必定同幸福相联系，所谓的不成功也未必不幸福。因此，在你们离开校园之际，你们不仅要树立自己的雄心，更必须界定自己的成功。
安分守已并不是一个贬义词，甚至不是一个中性词，“安分”是不容易的，在这个时代，“守已”则更不容易！
译文:
The community will never wait for you to grow
Students:
Good morning! （1）
At the occation of the celebration for your graduation and also the send-off for some students leaving campus, i would like to say a few words as your conclusion of the university life.
First and foremost, i want to tell the students on the point of working a great truth: there is a great difference between univercity and community.
In the campus, individual effort works but talent takes more effect. Teachers never ask for your material return. As long as you do a great job in examinations and you have no big personality problems, basically you will get teachers’ favor and they will give you reward with the performance of score. In a sense, university is basically a kind of“sage political” or “elite political” environment, just like a family. Basically teachers fix on the evaluation system, reward your intelligence in a centralized manner.
However（2）the community is different. It is more like a place of exchange, a market, a kind of “civil political” environment. The main evaluation is not your intelligence（3） ( although your wisdom can still help you), but it depends on whether you can come up with what other people want. This standard is no longer determined by the center—teachers, but dipersed—identified by the large number of consumers. As a result, despite the 178RMB price, during less than 10 days, the 3000 English version books of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” in Beijing, Xinhua Bookstore were out of stock, and meanwhile many scholars’ lifetime literature could not be sold so many, or even to “be kept in purdan without being known” （4）. Also as a result, there comes NianGuangjiu of “idiot melon seeds”; there is the saying of “ the guy researching missile is inferior to the guy selling tea-leaf eggs”; there appears the phenomenon of quiting students in IT industry. This “call white black” （5）phenomenon is not perfect, but it just shows the standard of market.
The limitation of human—do not reckon on turning consumers to Qian Zhongshu or Nash （6）by education or other methods. Therefore, our students can’t bring our past 16 years’ accustomed school standard into the community, otherwise you will find that your ability can’t be available in the cummunity, or you only can comfort yourself by LiBai’s saying—“ I must be available since i was born.” （7）. More extremely, you may even be out of tune with the society and market.
Although the society and the market’s hands are invisible, but the core is tangible; it is never about the futures but the spot. （8） You can criticize it short-sighted, but as a matter of fact, it usually will not be so and has no obligation to wait for you to grow and mature. It defines each person entering the community as an equal and never considers fresh graduates without experience. If you lose one opportunity, you just lose it. This situation is not similar with that in school where you can make-up, or beg for leniency from teachers to change scores. “students from Beijing university have potential” others can say yes, but you yourself should’t say so and don’t believe that. This kind of saying is not a placebo, to a certain extent, in fact it implies that you are not qualified, at least not now. If you really have potential and quality, please show me this, show me some esse things—may be a draft of an contract; may be a successful lawsuit.
Liberal arts students, during the four-year university life, usually contact with the most exciting events and people in history, just like “talk” with masters at all times and in all over the world. （9） You acquaint yourself with the Trial of Socrates; （10） you are seized of the Marbury V. Madison （11） and awared of the “Magna Carta” （12） and so on. You can also comment Confucius, Mencius, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu and discuss Plato, Aristotle, or even “Who but myself can do” （13）. The liberal arts education in university usually make many people tend to prefer the kind of exciting mement from their heart, even expand that feeling. But this is not and can’t be most people’s true lives, but only the life in the imagination of college life. Each of us can only live in day-to-day and trivial lives.
As a result, the second sentence I would like to say is“abide by the law and behave oneself” （14）, which suits every student.
This saying in our time perhaps was out of date, but to you it can also be available. Cause i have never worried about whether graduates of Beijing University will have lofty ideals. I worried more about whether you can be easily ambitious; about whether you can face the ordinary life calmly and easily, especially when the ideal of a young man become increasingly distant, dim and fuzzy. Also it is because, i would like to say, almost—if not all—every ambitious people can not be completely destined to achieve his ideals.
I certainly hope and believe that here among you will emerge distinguished statesmen, entrepreneurs, lawyers, scholars, but only a few among you can be—more can’t squeeze; more can’t be valuable—diminishing marginal utility. Whether upon mundane vision or self-evaluation, the vast majority of people must have been less successful.
However, we must realize that success must not be linked with happiness. Being unsuccessful may not be unhappy. So as you are leaving the campus, you’d better not only to establish your own ambition, but also have to define your own success.
“Abide by the law and behave oneself”is not a derogatory sentence, not even a neutral sentence. “Abide by the law”is not easy, in this era, “behave oneself”is even more difficult.