These writers will not be the last to offer an answer to the question of what makes China tick. But they could be among the best of them.
关于中国人的行为动机这个问题，还会有更多人著书立作。但以上三位作者可能是其中的佼佼者。Though Sima Qian was very distressed , he took great pains to write with strong will and completed the great historic book Shi Ji.
司马迁非常痛苦，但他凭着坚强的意志，发奋著书，终于完成了《史记》这部伟大的历史著作。And of what is beyond these, my son, beware: Of the making of many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
我儿，还有一层，你当留意：著书多，没有穷尽；读书多，身体疲倦。But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience.
然而，写作必须同时又是一种美感经验。否则，我就无法完成著书的工作，甚至连一篇长篇的报刊文章都写不成。For the four years writing the book, I had felt a sense of mission and purpose like never before in my life.
在著书的4年时间里，我有一种前所未有的使命感和目标感。If a forgettable U. S. president dies a month after taking office, do historians still have to write books about him?
假使一位易被忘却的美国总统上任一个月就逝世，史学家们是否还需要著书立作来记载他的事迹呢？Probing Essence of Psychological Aesthetics about Sima Qian's "Writing Books out of Determined Effort"
司马迁“发愤著书说”的心理美学内涵探析I never would have imagined I'd get a PhD, or become a professor, or write books.
我从未想到过自己会获得博士学位、成为教授、并著书立传。(The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World).
总裁，曾著书《动荡的年代：新世界中的冒险》