[美文欣賞]

"I dread to come to the end of the year,said a friend to me recently, "it makes me realize I am growing old.”

William James, the great psychologist, said that most men are "old fogies at twenty-five",He was right. Most men at twenty-five are satisfied with their jobs. They have accumulated the little stock of prejudices that they call their "Principles, " and closed their minds to all new ideas; they have ceased to grow.

The minutea man ceases to grow-no matter what his years-that minute he begins to be old. On the other hand, the really great man never grows old.

Goethe passed out at eighty-three, and finished his Faust only a few years earlier; Gladstone took up a new language when he was seventy.

Laplace, the astronomer, was still at work when death caught up with him at seventy-eight. He died crying, "What we know is nothing; what we do not know is immense."

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

Laplace at seventy-eight died young. He was still unsatisfied, still sure that he had 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 ceases to grow, the minute he says to himself, "I know all that I need to know,"--that day youth stops. He may be twenty-five or seventy-five, it makes no difference. On that day he begins to be old.

[參考譯文]

“我懼怕臨近歲末年尾”，一位朋友最近對(duì)我說(shuō)：“它使我意識(shí)到我正在變老。”

偉大的心理學(xué)家威廉·詹姆斯就曾說(shuō)過(guò)，大多數(shù)人“25歲時(shí)就成了守舊落伍者”。他的話是對(duì)的。大多數(shù)人25歲時(shí)就滿足于他們的工作。他們已經(jīng)積累了一些他們稱之為“原則”的偏見，對(duì)所有新的思想關(guān)閉心靈之門;他們已經(jīng)停止成長(zhǎng)。

一個(gè)人一旦停止成長(zhǎng)--不管他年齡多大--他就開始衰老。反之，真正的偉人從來(lái)不會(huì)衰老。

歌德享年83歲，逝世前幾年才完成《浮士德》;格萊斯頓70歲時(shí)又開始學(xué)習(xí)一門外國(guó)語(yǔ);法國(guó)天文學(xué)家拉普拉斯78歲死時(shí)還在工作著。臨死前，他大聲喊道：“我們所知的太少太少，我們所不知的太多太多。”

“一個(gè)人何時(shí)變老?”，從這類事例中對(duì)這個(gè)問(wèn)題你已經(jīng)有了真正的答案。

拉普拉斯78歲逝世時(shí)依然年輕。他依舊不滿足，依舊感到許多東西要學(xué)。

一個(gè)人，只要他能夠保持這種心態(tài)，只要他在回首過(guò)去的一年時(shí)能夠說(shuō)“我在成長(zhǎng)”，他就依然年輕。

他一旦停止成長(zhǎng)，他一旦對(duì)自己說(shuō)“我該懂的都懂了”，這個(gè)時(shí)候他的青春也就完了。他可能在25歲時(shí)死去，也可能在75歲時(shí)死去，這都沒有區(qū)別。就在那一天，他開始變老。