[转帖]塞缪尔.厄尔曼的《青春》及译文
Samuel Ullman 的“青春”
20世纪初，生于德国，后迁居美国的塞缪尔·厄尔曼写过一篇不足500字的短文《青春》，大半个世纪来一直为世人倾倒，产生着经久不息的轰动效应。不少世界名人将其视为座右铭，将其珍藏于随身携带的钱包之中。那是一段什么样的文字？它的魅力何在？在这里，我们录下全文，不仅仅是为青年朋友，而且是为所有读者，因为青春可以常驻在每一个人的生命之中……
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 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.
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like
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 twenty , but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism,
there is hope you may die young at eighty.
