知识的尽头
Left to your own devices, leave to one’s own devices, 听任某人自便，让……自行发展，不去管
Students were left to their own devices for long periods.
Limber up运动前的热身，相当于warm up
Sweat-stained pages
Ruminate on 思索，反刍；He sat alone, ruminating on the injustice of the world. 他独自坐着，思考世事的不公。
Crucify 钉在十字架上、折磨
Psychosomatic 身心灵病，比如压力大的时候容易引起胃病；（疾病）由心理焦虑引起的，心身的，身心的；a psychosomatic illness 心身疾病；
Hubris 傲慢、自大
Arid（因为干燥而导致寸草不生，事情不成功）erudition枯燥的学问
Arid, not interesting and showing no imagination; i found his writing extremely arid. 我觉得他写的东西毫无新意。
Erudition博学，学问精深；He possessed a considerable legal erudition. 他法律知识相当渊博。
Appalled 感到惊骇的，表示憎恶的；i was appalled by what i saw. 眼前的一幕看得我心惊肉跳。
神学被分在哲学范畴之下的
And once learned, it could not be unlearned.
Ramifications and implications, ramification可能的后果，衍生结果，派生影响；
These changes are bound to have widespread social ramifications. 这些变化注定会造成许多难以预料的社会后果。
Boredom and inertia, Leopardi understood at once, would be the archenemy of a world freed, or bereft, of all illusions, all belief.
Arch+enemy主要敌人
I think my madness would be always sitting with my eyes wide with bewilderment...neither laughing nor crying, never moving from where i was unless forced...
This is the first time boredom hasn’t merely oppressed and wearied me, but actually plagues and racks me like a terrible pain.
Rack：使肉体或精神上受巨大痛苦，折磨；Even at the end, when cancer racked his body, he was calm and cheerful. 即使在最后，当他的身体备受癌症病魔摧残的时候，他仍然镇定自若、乐观开朗。
They were driven by beliefs that were demonstrably显而易见的vain.
所罗门王，古以色列的君王、最伟大、最具传奇色彩；历代君王中最大的虚无主义者：
“我心里说，来吧，谁知者也是虚空，我只嬉笑说，这是狂妄；论喜乐说，有何功效呢？心里查究如何用酒使我心情舒畅，我心却仍以智慧引导我，我为自己动大工程，
建造房屋、栽种葡萄园、修造园囿，在其中栽种各样古木树……我心所乐的，我没有禁止不享受的，凡我眼所求的,我没有留下不给他的;我心所乐的,我没有禁止不享受的;因我的心为我一切所劳碌的快乐,这就是我从劳碌中所得的分。后来,我察看我手所经营的一切事，和我劳碌所成的功；谁知都是虚空，都是捕风，在日光之下毫无益处。……因为在日光之下所行的事，我都以为烦恼，都是虚空，都是捕风”
One needed to be impelled by illusion, not truth - or certainly not ultimate, philosophical truths.
伟大的悲剧之下实际上是虚无。
Freed of a stream of hard information, the imagination is stimulated, which is a pleasure. All that is fixed and certain, is much farther from contenting us than that which, by its very uncertainty, can never content us. Vagueness has a value in itself.
Aphorism 警句
莫言：人有局限性，不一定是坏事。
一切的惊心动魄，一切的荡气回肠，都需要这种幻觉。
The key to a positive state of mind, might lie in inducing a temporary forgetfulness. 暂时的忘却
Surgery could induce heart attack. 带有故意引诱、劝服的意味。
As it then was 那时的
Liken A to B 把A比作B
Has human effort / ever been but a game? Is truth any less / Empty than falsehood?
Least wretched, when with perils so beset 苦恼、苦难。
Heed the flight 飞逝of slow-paced, worthless hours 缓慢的无意义的时光
Have an unwarranted不合理的、不公平的opinion of themselves，accuse police of unwarranted brutality;
Shared sense of complacency自满、自得
Set about turning the very exploration of despair into his salvation
That even when they capture exactly the nothingness of things, or vividly reveal and make us feel life’s inevitable unhappiness, or express the most acute hopelessness... they are always a source of consolation and renewed enthusiasm. Momentarily.
Managing despair is a day job, never imagine the problem is solved.
His mockery of all science-driven optimism were inescapable 不可避免的、不可忽视的
In short, no one wants a bearer of bad tidings. 给人带来坏消息的人
We can’t help feeling that our modern times stand（使）处于、进入（特定状态或境况）condemned.
Reality check 面对现实，反思现实
It’s telling that ... 能够反映真实情况的
Nobody more than Leopardi could look disaster in the face, never denying that it was disaster, yet at the same time turning unhappiness itself into a colour of fragrance that would help you through the day.
The recognition of the irredeemable不可救药的，redeem赎回的vanity and falsity of all beauty and all greatness is itself a kind of beauty and greatness that fits the soul, when it is conveyed by a work of genius. And the spectacle壮观的场面of nothingness is itself a thing in these works, and seems to enlarge the reader’s soul, to raise it up and to make it take satisfaction in itself and its despair.
Walking on the slopes of Vesuvius where a whole civilization had been buried under burning lava, he takes comfort in the scent and yellow flowers of the broom.
It thrives on the destruction of man’s illusions, but without any pretensions to immortality, quite resigned to being swept away itself by the next lava flow.
