第12句见：Day12
《哲学的故事》的第13句：序言中的第1段第13句。
Truth will not make us rich, but it will make us free.
浙江大学版本：真理无法帮助我们富有，却能使我们自由。
解析
这是序言第1段的最后一句，算比较简练。“真理无法使我们富裕，但能使我们自由。”
现在有钱，经常意味着钱占有了你，而不是人占有钱。物化的社会往往让人找不到北，钱让人着迷，也让人迷失。“君子不器”就告诫人们不要执迷于某一项东西，会让拘囿于此，不能放开自己。
自由+无用是人生的一大追求。自由可以选择做与不做，从自己角度出发，不用被生活所迫。
序言的第一段落在这里结束，重新回顾一下。
There is a pleasure in philosophy, and a lure even in the mirages of metaphysics, which every student feels until the coarse necessities of physical existence drag him from the heights of thought into the mart of economic strife and gain. Most of us have known some golden days in the June of life when philosophy was in fact what Plato calls it, “that dear delight”; when the love of a modestly elusive Truth seemed more glorious, incomparably, than the lust for the ways of the flesh and the dross of the world. And there is always some wistful remnant in us of that early wooing of wisdom."Life has meaning,”we feel with Browning—“to find its meaning is my meat and drink.” So much of our lives is meaningless, a self-cancelling vacillation and futility; we strive with the chaos about us and within; but we would believe all the while that there is something vital and significant in us, could we but decipher our own souls. We want too understand; “life means for us constantly to transform into light and flame all that are or meet with”; we are like Mitya in The Brothers Karamazov —“one of those who don’t want millions, but an answer to their questions”; we want to seize the value and perspective of passing things, and so to pull ourselves up out of the maelstrom of daily circumstance. We want to know that the little things are little, and the big things big, before it is too late.We want to see things now as they will seem forever—"in the light of eternity." We want to learn to laugh in the face of the inevitable, to smile even at the looming of death. We want to be whole, to coördinate our energies by criticizing and harmonizing our desires; for coördinated energy is the last word in ethics and politics, and perhaps in logic and metaphysics too."To be a philosopher," said Thoreau, "is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust." We may be sure that if we can but find wisdom, all things else will be added unto us. "Seek ye first the good things of the mind," Bacon admonishes us, "and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt." Truth will not make us rich, but it will make us free.
哲学有种愉悦，即便在形而上学里幻象有种魅力。每一学生都能感觉到，直到物理存在的粗俗必需品将他从思想的极点拖入经济冲突与利益的集市里。我们大多数人都知晓古希腊罗马时期的哲学黄金年代。在那个时候，哲学确实称得上柏拉图口中的“那珍贵的喜悦”；在那个时候，对于真理谦卑地浅吟低唱、难以名状的热爱，是如此的荣光，以至于对肉体上的欲望和世间的糟粕的追寻都无法掩盖其光芒。早期智慧的追寻总是或多或少给我们留下些伤感的残迹。“人生有其意义”，正如勃朗宁所说，“找到它的意义就是我的日常”。我们生命的很大部分都是无意义的，是自相矛盾的，是徒劳的；我们与周围以及自身作斗争；但是我们相信，如果我们能破译我们自己的灵魂，我们内心总是有那么些东西是至关重要的。我们想知道，“生活对于我们意味一直将我们自身及秘遇到的一切转化成智慧与热情”；我们就像《卡拉马佐夫兄弟》中的米特亚，“那些不要百万财富只求能回答他们问题的那一个答案的人群中的一员”；我们想抓住转瞬即逝事物的价值及视角，从而将我们自己从日常生活的旋涡中抽离出来。趁为时不晚，我们想知道小事是小的，大事是大的；我们想现在看事情就如它们永恒所看起来的那样——“永恒的光”。我们打算学会笑对不可避免的事情，甚至是死亡的骤至也能微笑。我们想要成一体，通过批判与使各种欲望一致来协调我们的精力；因为在伦理学、政治学，乃至逻辑学和形而上学，再没有比协调过的精力好的了。梭罗说：“要成为一名哲学家，不仅要有细致入微的思考甚至于要成立新的学派，而且要这般爱智慧并遵从智慧，过一种简单、独立、宽容而信任的生活。”我们也许能确信：只要找到了智慧，其他东西都会加给我们。“首先寻求你思维中的善，”培根告诫我们，“其余要么会自动会来，要么是失去时也不可惜。”真理不能让我们富裕，但能让我们自由。
