[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”，一位朋友最近對我說：“它使我意識到我正在變老。”

偉大的心理學家威廉·詹姆斯就曾說過，大多數人“25歲時就成了守舊落伍者”。他的話是對的。大多數人25歲時就滿足于他們的工作。他們已經積累了一些他們稱之為“原則”的偏見，對所有新的思想關閉心靈之門;他們已經停止成長。

一個人一旦停止成長--不管他年齡多大--他就開始衰老。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歲時又開始學習一門外國語;法國天文學家拉普拉斯78歲死時還在工作著。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。”

“一個人何時變老?”，從這類事例中對這個問題你已經有了真正的答案。

拉普拉斯78歲逝世時依然年輕。他依舊不滿足，依舊感到許多東西要學。

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“我在成長”，他就依然年輕。

他一旦停止成長，他一旦對自己說“我該懂的都懂了”，這個時候他的青春也就完了。他可能在25歲時死去，也可能在75歲時死去，這都沒有區別。就在那一天，他開始變老。