Advice to a Young Man 給一位青年的忠告

By Robert Jones Burdette

Remember, my son, you have to work. Whether you handle a pick or a pen, a wheel-barrow or a set of books, digging ditches or editing a paper, ringing an auction bell or writing funny things,you must work.

謹記，我的年輕人，你們必須工作.不管你是使鋤頭還是用筆，也不管是推手推車還是編記賬簿，也不管你是種地還是編輯報紙，是拍賣師亦或是作家，都必須有一份工作，并為之努力奮斗.

If you look around, you will see the men who are the most able to live the rest of their days without work are the men who work the hardest.

若仔細想想，你就會明白，完全用不著工作就能安度余生的, 是那些工作最努力的人。

Don’t be afraid of killing yourself with overwork. It is beyond your power to do that on the sunny side of thirty.

不要擔心工作過累會要了自己的命。而在你而立之年生活愉悅之時，過度工作卻是你能力所不及的。

They die sometimes, but it is because they quit work at six in the evening, and do not go home until two in the morning. It is the interval that kills, my son.

工作過累的人有時會死掉，但那時因為他們晚上六點下班，卻直到凌晨兩點才回家。兒子，令他們喪命的是過長的工作時間。

The work gives you an appetite for your meals; it lends solidity to your slumber; it gives you a perfect and grateful appreciation of a holiday.

工作會令你胃口大開，給你安穩的睡眠，給予你完美而又充滿感恩之情的假期。

There are young men who do not work, but the world is not proud of them. It does not know their names, even. Nobody likes them; the great, busy world does not know that they are there.

有些年輕人無所事事，但世界并不為他們感到驕傲，甚至不知道他們姓甚名誰。沒有人喜歡他們，這浩瀚、忙碌的世界根本不知道他們的存在。