When Is a Man Old?
人何时会变老
"I dread（害怕） to come to the end of the year," said a friend to me recently, "it makes me realize I am growing old."
“我很担心，一年又将逝去了，” 最近，一个朋友这样对我说，“这让我觉得自己又老了一岁。”
William James, the great psychologist, said that most men are "old fogies（跟不上时代的人） at twenty-five".
曾有一位著名的心理学家说过，很多人“在25岁时就已衰老落伍”。
He was right. Most men at twenty-five are satisfied with their jobs.
他说对了，很多人在25岁时就对自己的工作感到满足。
They have accumulated（积累） the little stock of prejudices that they call their "principles," and closed their minds to all new ideas; they have ceased to grow.
他们积累了一些成见，并把它们当成自己的所谓“原则”；他们思想守旧，拒绝新的观点；他们已经停止了成长。
The minute a man ceases to grow — no matter what his years — that minute he begins to be old.
当一个人停止成长的时候——无论他的年龄如何——他就已经开始衰老。
On the other hand, the really great man never grows old.
从另一方面来说，真正伟大的人是永不衰老的。
Goethe passed away at eighty-three, and finished his Faust only a few years earlier;
歌德是在83岁逝世的。他在逝世的前几年才完成了《浮士德》。
Gladstone took up a new language when he was seventy.
格拉德斯通在七十岁那年还在学习一门新语言！
Laplace, the astronomer, was still at work when death caught up with him at seventy-eight.
天文学家拉普拉斯78岁去世时还在工作。
He died crying, "What we know is nothing; what we do not know is immense."
死神来临时，在弥留的刹那间他还喊道：“我们知道的何其少，而不知道的又何其多！”
And there you have the real answer to the question, "When is a man old?"
从上面的几个例子中你可以得出“人的衰老是在什么时候？”的真正答案了。
Laplace at seventy-eight died young. He was still unsatisfied, still sure that he had a lot to learn.
当拉普拉斯78岁去世时，他仍然是年轻的，因为他仍然没有满足于现状，仍然觉得自己还有许多东西要学。
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.
只要一个人能保持这种心态，只要他每年回首往事时都能说：“我成长了。”他就依然年轻。
The minute he ceases to grow, the minute he says to himself, "I know all that I need to know," that day youth stops.
当他停止成长的那一刻，当他对自己说：“我已经知道了我需要知道的一切”的那一刻，青春就停止了。
He may be twenty-five or seventy-five, it makes no difference.
他可能是二十五岁，也可能是七十五岁，这并没有什么区别。
On that day he begins to be old.
在那一天他就开始变老。
网友评论