英文早读第16篇，选自巴菲特年度信，友才翻译。

I would consider a year in which we declined 15% and the Average 30% to be much superior to a year when both we and the Average advanced 20%. Over a period of time there are going to be good and bad years; there is nothing to be gained by getting enthused or depressed about the sequence in which they occur. The important thing is to be beating par; a four on a par three hole is not as good as a five on a par five hole and it is unrealistic to assume we are not going to have our share of both par three's and par five's.
我假设有一年我们下跌15%但指数下跌30%，是比我们与指数都增长20%要好很多。在一个时间段市场会是好的或差的年份，但是当这些发生时我们变得兴奋或者沮丧没有任何意义。重要的是打败标准杆；在3杆洞打出4杆没有在5杆洞打出5杆好，但确保我们的股份都是3杆洞或者5杆洞是不现实的。

The above does of philosophy is being despensed since we have a number of new partners this year and I want to make sure they understand my objectives, my measure of attainment of these objectives, and some of my known limitations.
这些理念一直在实施，但考虑到我们今年有一些新的合伙人，我想确保他们理解我的目标，我衡量这些目标达成的方法，和一些我知道的限制。

With this background it is not unexpected that 1960 was a better-than-average year for us. As contrasted with an overall loss of 6.3% for the Industrial Average, we had a 22.8% gain for the seven partnerships operating throughout the year. Our results for the four complete years of partnership operation after expenses but before interest to limited partners or allocation to the general partner are:

It shoud be emphasized again that these are the net results to the partnership; the net results to the limited partners would depend on the partnership agreement that they had selected.
需要再次强调这些结果是对合伙基金的；而对有限合伙人的净收益则还要取决于他们选择的合伙协议。

6.philosophy：哲学；人生哲学；思想体系
7.dispense：分配；施与；提供（尤指服务）；分发；配药；实行；豁免
8.attainment：成就；获得；达到；造诣
9.unexpected：出乎意料的；意想不到的；始料未及的
10.allocation：分配；划；划拨的款项；拨给的场地