Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of the field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, ----that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, ----that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, ----that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, ----and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
葛底斯堡演说
四分和七年前，我们的先辈在这个大陆上了一个新国家，它孕育于自由之中，奉行一切人生来平等的原则。现在我们正从事一场伟大的内战，以考验这个国家，或者任何一个孕育于自由和奉行，可以长期忍受。
我们相聚在这场战争的一个伟大的战场。我们来把这战场的一部分奉献给那些在此为国家也许生活最后的安息之地。这是完全恰当的，我们应该这样做。但在更广泛的意义上来说，我们不能奉献，我们不能奉献，我们不能够神化。
勇敢的人，活着的和死去的，那些曾经在这里战斗过，这远不是我们微薄的力量所能增减。世界不会注意，也不会长久地记住我们在这里所说的话，但是，它永远不会忘记勇士们在这里所做的事。
这是我们，活着的人，应该献身于那些曾在此战斗过的未竟的事业未完成的工作。倒是我们应该在这里献身于仍然留在我们面前的伟大任务，——我们要从这些光荣的死者增加投入，使他们为之献身的，----我们在此立志誓愿，不会白白死去，----这个国家，在上帝的保佑下，将获得自由的新生，----和人民的政府，由人民，为人民，将不会从地球上消亡。