生活 / Life

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonders, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station: so long does it receive messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young.

An individual human existence should be like a river—small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, it becomes merged in the sea, and painlessly loses its individual being.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

【助讀詞匯】

◇unfailing  adj. 無(wú)窮的，無(wú)盡的

◇passionately adv. 熱情地，熱切地，強(qiáng)烈地

◇boulder  n. 巨礫，圓石

◇temperamental  adj. 性情的，易激動(dòng)的

◇predominance  n. 優(yōu)勢(shì)，主導(dǎo)地位，優(yōu)勢(shì)地位

◇wrinkle  n. 皺紋 v. 使皺

【參考譯文】

生活

無(wú)論是60歲還是16歲，每人個(gè)的內(nèi)心都會(huì)受到外面世界的誘惑，都會(huì)有孩子般的探知欲，都會(huì)享受人生游戲的歡樂。在你我的心底，有一座無(wú)線電臺(tái)，它能在多長(zhǎng)時(shí)間里接收到人間萬(wàn)物傳遞來(lái)的美好、希望、歡樂、鼓舞和力量的信息，你就會(huì)年輕多長(zhǎng)時(shí)間。

每個(gè)人的生命應(yīng)當(dāng)像河流，開始是涓涓細(xì)流，受兩岸的限制而十分狹窄，然后奔騰咆哮，翻過(guò)危巖，飛越瀑布，河面漸漸開闊，河岸也隨之向兩邊隱去，最后水流平緩，淼淼無(wú)際，匯入大海之中，人就這樣毫無(wú)痛苦地消失了。

青春意味著戰(zhàn)勝懦弱的那股大丈夫氣概和摒棄安逸的那種冒險(xiǎn)精神。往往一個(gè)60歲的老者比一個(gè)20歲的青年更多一點(diǎn)這種勁頭。人老不僅僅是歲月流逝所致，更主要的是不思進(jìn)取的結(jié)果。

歲月可以在皮膚上留下印記，而熱情之火的熄滅則在心靈上刻下皺紋。煩惱、恐懼、缺乏自信會(huì)使人的人的心靈變得懦弱，并將人的精神化為灰燼!

【人生啟迪】

我們每個(gè)人的生命都只有一次，今天過(guò)去了就永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)再回來(lái)，我們不是上帝，不會(huì)知道下一秒將會(huì)發(fā)生什么事情，但是只要我們把握好現(xiàn)在的每一分每一秒，我們才不會(huì)在年老的時(shí)候感嘆自己逝去的青春和生命。