英文早读第100篇，选自巴菲特年度信，友才翻译。
The Sorrows of Compounding
复利的悲伤
Usually, at this point in my letter, I have paused to modestly attempt to set straight the historical errors of the last four or five hundred years. While it might seem difficult to accomplish this in only a few paragraphs a year, I feel I have done my share to reshape world opinion on Columbus, Isabella, Francis I, Peter Minuit and the Manhattan Indians. A by-product of this endeavor has been to demonstrate the overwhelming power of compound interest. To insure reader attention I have entitled these essays "The Joys of Compounding." The sharp-eyed may notice a slight change this year.
通常，在我信件的这一点上，我会停下来去谨慎地试图列举在最近四五百年历史性的错误。尽管这似乎有些困难在仅仅一年几个段落中完成这些，我感觉我已经完成了我的分享去重塑对哥伦布、伊莎贝拉、法兰西一世、皮特 米纽恩特和曼哈顿印第安人的世界观点。这个努力的副产品是说明了复利的压倒性力量。为了保证读者的注意力我为这些短文命名“复利的乐趣”。眼睛犀利的人或许注意到今年的细微变化。
A decent rate (better we have an indecent rate) of compound - plus the addition of substantial new money has brought our beginning capital this year to 43,645,000. Several times in the past I have raised the question whether increasing amounts of capital would harm our investment performance. Each time I have answered negatively and promised you that if my opinion changed, I would promptly report it.
一个优秀（最好我们有不优秀的利率）的复利利率——加上大量的新增资金带来了今年启动资金至4364.5万美金。过去很多次我提到这个问题增加的资金量是否会伤害我们的投资表现。每一次我都否定地回答并且答应你如果我的观点变化，我会及时报告它。
I do not feel that increasing capital has hurt our operation to date. As a matter of fact, I believe that we have done somewhat better during the past few years with the capital we have had in the Partnership than we would have done if we had been working with a substantially smaller amount. This was due to the partly fortuitous development of several investments that were just the right size for us - big enough to be significant and small enough to handle.
到目前我没有感觉增加的资本已经伤害了我们的运作。事实上，我相信在过去这些年伴随着我们在合伙基金的资金我们做的更好相比于如果我们以明显更少的资金量。这部分因为偶然的投资发展到对我们正好合适的规模——大到足够重要并且小到足够掌控。
I now feel that we are much closer to the point where increased size may prove disadvantageous. I don't want to ascribe too much precision to that statement since there are many variables involved. What may be the optimum size under some market and business circumstances can be substantially more or less than optimum under other circumstances. There have been a few times in the past when on a very short-term basis I have felt it would have been advantageous to be smaller but substantially more times when the converse was true.
我现在感觉我们更加接近这个点当增加了规模或许证明不利的。我不想太过于准确地归因于这个表述既然包含了很多变量。什么会是最佳的规模在某些市场和业务环境下会是很大幅多于或少于在其他环境下的最佳规模。在过去有几次当基于一个非常短期的前提下我感觉更小规模更有利但是大量更多次相反观点是对的。
Nevertheless, as circumstances presently appear, I feel substantially greater size is more likely to harm future results than to help them. This might not be true for my own personal results, but it is likely to be true for your results.
然而，像最近环境表现的，我感觉大幅变大的规模似乎会伤害未来的结果而不是帮助我们。这或许对我自己的结果不是对的，但是对你们的结果可能是对的。
Therefore, unless it appears that circumstances have changed (under some conditions added capital would improve results) or unless new partners can bring some asset to the Partnership other than simply capital, I intend to admit no additional partners to BPL.
因此，除非环境发生了变化（在某些条件下增加的资金会提高结果）或者除非新的合伙人可以带给合伙基金一些资产而不仅仅是资金，我计划巴菲特合伙基金不再接受新增的合伙人。
The only way to make this effective is to apply it across-the-board and I have notified Susie that if we have any more children, it is up to her to find some other partnership for them.
唯一的方式使这个有效就是全盘实施它，并且我已经通知苏西如果我们有了更多的孩子，由她来为他们寻找别的基金。
Because I anticipate that withdrawals (for taxes, among other reasons) may well approach additions by present partners and also because I visualize the curve of expectable performance sloping only very mildly as capital increases, I presently see no reason why we should restrict capital additions by existing partners.
因为我预计支取（为了税务和其他原因）或许很接近由现有合伙人新增资金，并且同样因为我构想了预期的表现高峰当资金增加时缓慢下滑，否则我现在找不到理由为什么我们应当限制现有合伙人增加资金。
The medically oriented probably will interpret this entire section as conclusive evidence that an effective antithyroid pill has been developed.
医学出身的人将会说明这整个部分作为结论证据表明一个有效的抗甲状腺药丸已经上市了。
29.sorrow：悲伤；悲痛；不幸；遗憾；懊悔
30.modestly：谨慎地；切勿浪费
31.by-product：副产品；副作用；意外结果
32.endeavor：努力；尽力；试图
33.decent：像样的；正派的；适当的；相当不错的；上好的
34.harm：伤害；损害
35.fortuitous：偶然的；偶然发生的
36.ascribe：归因；把……归咎于
37.precision：精确；准确；细致
38.optimum：最佳的；最适宜的
39.circumstance：环境；条件；境况；境遇
40.across-the-board：全面的；包括一切的
41.up to：取决于……的；须由……决定的；接近于
42.visualize：可视化；设想；构想
43.slope：倾斜；溜；斜坡
44.mildly：温和的；轻微的
45.antithyroid：抗甲状腺的
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