青春 YOUTH （英文原版和多中文译本）

作者: 塞缪尔·厄尔曼 Samuel Ullman    人气: 19117   

 

        德裔美籍人塞缪尔.厄尔曼70多年前写的一篇只有四百多字的短文。首次在美国发表的时候，引起全美国轰动效应，成千上万的读者把它抄下来当作座右铭收藏，许多中老年人把它作为安排后半生的精神支柱。

        美国的麦克阿瑟将军在指挥整个太平洋战争期间，办公桌上始终摆着装有短文《年轻》复印件的镜 框，文中的许多的词句常被他在谈话或开会作报告时引用。

        后来此文传到日本，文章的观点成为许多日本人生活哲学的基础。

        松下公司的创始人松下幸之助说：“多年来，《年轻》始终是我的座右铭。”

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of
rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a
quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of
the deep springs of life.

Youth means a tempera-mental predominance of courage over timidity, of the
appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of
60 more than a boy of 20.　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 spring back to dust.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder,
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 as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and
power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism
and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as
your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die
young at 80.