第7句见：Day7
《哲学的故事》的第8句：序言中的第1段第8句。
Introduction
On the uses of Philosophy
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.
浙江大学版本： 希望能够笑对不可避免之事，甚至是日益逼近的死亡；
解析
这句话探讨了一种积极和豁达态度。
1、We want to learn to laugh in the face of the inevitable, 人人都不能避免的事是生老病死。面对这些，我们也要坦然笑着面对。
the inevitable
the + adj. 表示某类的事物，the inevitable 表示不可避免的事；
2、to smile even at the looming of death. 死亡是the inevitable中的终极，毕竟没人活着回来过。所以用了，even表示递进。笑对死亡是种修炼。
looming of death 临近死亡。
类似的表达有：approaching death；两者区别在于前者更为形象，突然，有种黑云压城的感觉，但后者可以表示接近死亡。从下面的动词原型的英文释义可以了解一二：
- loom表示 to be close to happening : to be about to happen — used especially of unpleasant or frightening things
e.g. The threat of renewed civil war looms ahead.
- approach： to move or become near or nearer to something or someone
e.g. The cat approached the baby cautiously.
我们要学会在不可避免的事情面前开怀大笑，即使在死亡的威胁也能微笑。
这种境界有点高，有点不食人间烟火了，这有些革命烈士面对死亡一往无前，比如夏明翰的“砍头不要紧，只要主义真。”突然想到柏拉图在睡梦中微笑着死去。此类大家笑对死亡的例子倒是比比皆是。
