源自莎士比亞作品的10個常用短語

7. Cruel to Be Kind: 要想善良，必先殘忍；忠言逆耳

How Shakespeare used it:

"I must be cruel only to be kind; / Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind," says the tormented Hamlet. He has just mistakenly killed Polonius, and it's clear that he doesn't know how bad things are going to get. (Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4)

飽受折磨的哈姆雷特說：“要想善良，必先殘忍，壞事開了頭，更糟糕的還在后面。”他剛剛誤殺了波洛尼厄斯，而且很明顯他根本不知道事情會糟糕到什么程度。（《哈姆雷特》，第3幕第4場）

現代例句：

"The government has portrayed the cull [of 400 kangaroos] as a necessary case of being cruel to be kind, but the international focus has been mostly on the cruelty." — Tim Johnston, New York Times, Mar. 14, 2008