雙語智慧書·不要只傾聽自己的聲音

141．不要只傾聽自己的聲音
　　不要只傾聽自己的聲音。如果你不能愉悅他人，愉悅自己也無用處。人若自滿，必受懲罰，也即遭人蔑視。把注意力放在自己身上，還不如放在別人身上。說話的時候只聽自己的聲音，不會有好的結果。如果說自言自語是瘋狂，那么，在別人面前只聽自己說則是雙倍的愚蠢。有的大人物在講話時反復說"正如我剛才所說"或者問"是不是"，這是一個缺點，會讓聽眾迷惑。每說一句話都在期待他人的贊同和恭維，這讓智者的耐心不堪重荷。浮華虛夸之人也是如此，他們說話也需借用高蹺才能蹣跚而行。因此，他們每說一個字，都要那些愚蠢的"好啊"來支持。



141．Do not listen to yourself
　Do not listen to yourself. It is no use pleasing yourself if you do not please others, and as a rule general contempt is the punishment for self-satisfaction. The attention you pay to yourself you probably owe to others. To speak and at the same time listen to yourself cannot turn out well. If to talk to oneself when alone is madness, it must be doubly unwise to listen to oneself in the presence of others. It is a weakness of the great to talk with a recurrent "as I was saying" and "eh?" which bewilders their hearers. At every sentence they look for applause or flattery, taxing the patience of the wise. So too the pompous speak with an echo, and as their talk can only totter on with the aid of stilts, at every word they need the support of a stupid "Bravo!"