單詞與詞組　Words and phrases

    ①dread  v. 懼怕

    ②psychologist  n. 心理學(xué)家

    ③fogy  n. 守舊者

    ④Goethe  n. 歌德(詩(shī)人)

    ⑤immense  a. 無(wú)邊的
 
    "I dread① to come to the end of the year, said a friend to me recently, "it makes me realize  I am growing old."

    “我懼怕臨近歲末年尾”，一位朋友最近對(duì)我說(shuō)：“它使我意識(shí)到我正在變老。”
 
    William James, the great psychologist②, said that most men are "old fogies③ 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.

    偉大的心理學(xué)家威廉-詹姆斯就曾說(shuō)過(guò)，大多數(shù)人“25歲時(shí)就成了守舊落伍者”。他的話是對(duì)的。大多數(shù)人25歲時(shí)就滿(mǎn)足于他們的工作。他們已經(jīng)積累了一些他們稱(chēng)之為“原則”的偏見(jiàn)，對(duì)所有新的思想關(guān)閉心靈之門(mén)；他們已經(jīng)停止成長(zhǎng)。
 
    The minute a 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.

    一個(gè)人一旦停止成長(zhǎng)--不管他年齡多大--他就開(kāi)始衰老。反之，真正的偉人從來(lái)不會(huì)衰老。
 
    Goethe④ 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 immense⑤."

    歌德享年83歲，逝世前幾年才完成《浮士德》；格萊斯頓70歲時(shí)又開(kāi)始學(xué)習(xí)一門(mén)外國(guó)語(yǔ)；法國(guó)天文學(xué)家拉普拉斯78歲死時(shí)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。”
 
     And there you have the real answer to the question, "When is a man old?"

    “一個(gè)人何時(shí)變老？”，從這類(lèi)事例中對(duì)這個(gè)問(wèn)題你已經(jīng)有了真正的答案。
 
    Laplace at seventy-eight died young. He was still unsatisfied, still sure that he had a lot to learn.

    拉普拉斯78歲逝世時(shí)依然年輕。他依舊不滿(mǎn)足，依舊感到許多東西要學(xué)。
 
    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.

    一個(gè)人，只要他能夠保持這種心態(tài)，只要他在回首過(guò)去的一年時(shí)能夠說(shuō)“我在成長(zhǎng)”，他就依然年輕。
 
    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.

    他一旦停止成長(zhǎng)，他一旦對(duì)自己說(shuō)“我該懂的都懂了”，這個(gè)時(shí)候他的青春也就完了。他可能在25歲時(shí)死去，也可能在75歲時(shí)死去，這都沒(méi)有區(qū)別。就在那一天，他開(kāi)始變老。