偉大的人永遠不老

Track 8

供稿&翻譯：一沁

偉大的人永遠不老

Track 8

供稿&翻譯：一沁

The Great Man Never Grows Old

你或許曾經想過這樣一個問題，“一個人到多少歲會開始變老？”或者“我的青春還有多少年？”。對于這些問題，希望你能從本文中找到正確的答案。

“I1)dread coming to the end of the year,” a friend said to me recently, “It makes me realize I am growing old.”

William James注1, the great2)psychologist, said that most men are “old3)fogies at 25.” He was right. Most men at 25 are satisfed with their jobs. They have closed their minds to all new ideas—they have stopped growing.

The minute a man stops growing, he becomes old no matter what his age is. On the other hand, the really great man never grows old.

Goethe注2passed away at 83, and finished Faust only a few years earlier; Gladstone注3started to learn a new language when he was 70. Laplace注4, the4)astronomer, was still working when death caught up with him at 78. He died crying, “What we know is nothing; what we do not know is5)immense!”

And there you have the real answer to the question, “When is a man old?”

Laplace died young at 78. He was still unsatisfed, still sure that he has a lot to learn.

As long as a man can keep himself in that attitude of mind, as long as he can look back on every year and say, “I grew,” he is still young.

The minute he stops growing, the minute he says to himself, “I know all that I need to know,”—that day youth stops. He may be 25 or 75. It makes no difference.

“我懼怕臨近歲末年尾，”一位朋友最近對我說，“它讓我意識到自己正在衰老。”

偉大的心理學家威廉·詹姆斯曾說過，大多數人“在25歲時就成了守舊落伍之人”。他這話是對的。大多數人在25歲時就滿足于他們的工作，把所有的新思想都拒之門外——他們已經停止成長。

一個人一旦停止成長——不管他年紀多大——他已開始衰老。反之，真正的偉人從來不會衰老。

歌德享年83歲，逝世前幾年才完成《浮士德》；格萊斯頓70歲開始學習一門新的語言；天文學家拉普拉斯78歲離世之際還在工作著。臨死前，他大聲喊道：“我們所知的太少太少；我們不知的太多太多！”

“一個人何時變老？”對這個問題，你從這些人身上得到了真正的答案。

拉普拉斯78歲逝世時依然是年輕的——他依然不滿足，依然感到自己還有許多東西要學。

一個人，只要他能夠保持這種心態，只要他在回首過去的一年時能夠說出“我成長了”，他就依然年輕。

而一旦他停止成長，一旦他對自己說“該懂的我都懂了”，這個時候他的青春也就到頭了。無論那時他是25歲還是75歲，這都沒有區別。

詞組加油站

catch up with 追趕上……

make no difference 無關緊要，沒有影響

1) dread [dred] v. 害怕，擔心

2) psychologist [sa?'k?l?d??st] n. 心理學家

3) fogy ['f??g?] n. 守舊者

4) astronomer [?'str?n?m?] n. 天文學家

5) immense [?'mens] adj. 巨大的，無邊際的

注1：威廉·詹姆斯（William James），美國心理學之父，是美國本土第一位哲學家和心理學家。

注2：約翰·沃爾夫岡·馮·歌德（Johann Wolfgang von Goethe），德國著名思想家、作家、科學家。其代表作有《少年維特之煩惱》《浮士德》等。

注3：威廉·尤爾特·格萊斯頓（William Ewart Gladstone），英國政治家，曾作為自由黨人四次出任英國首相。

注4：皮埃爾-西蒙·拉普拉斯侯爵（Pierre-Simon marquis de Laplace），法國著名的天文學家和數學家，是天體力學的主要奠基人。