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.
青春不是年華,而是心境;青春不是桃面、丹唇、柔膝,而是深沉的意志,恢宏的想象,炙熱的戀情;青春是生命的深泉在涌流。
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a body of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
青春氣貫長虹,勇銳蓋過怯弱,進取壓倒茍安。如此銳氣,二十后生而有之,六旬男子則更多見。年歲有加,并非垂老,理想丟棄,方墮暮年。
Years may wrinkle he skin, but to give up enthusiasm Worry,fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
歲月悠悠,衰微只及肌膚;熱忱拋卻,頹廢必致靈魂。憂煩,惶恐,喪失自信,定使心靈扭曲,意氣如友。
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heat the lure of wonder, 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.
無論年屆花甲,擬或二八芳齡,心中皆有生命之歡樂,奇跡之誘惑,孩童般天真久盛不衰。人人心中皆有一臺天線,只要你從天上人間接受美好、希望、歡樂、勇氣和力量的信號,你就青春永駐,風華常存。
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.
一旦天線下降,銳氣便被冰雪覆蓋,玩世不恭、自暴自棄油然而生,即使年方二十,實已垂垂老矣;然則只要樹起天線,捕捉樂觀信號,你就有望在八十高齡告別塵寰時仍覺年輕。
注釋:
exist vi. 存在
例句:The world exists, whether you like it or not.
不管你喜歡與否,這個世界照樣存在。
enthusiasm n. 熱心,熱忱,熱情
例句:She showed simulated enthusiasm towards us.
她向我們表示了虛假的熱情。
wireless adj. 無線的;無線電的
例句:And we find ourselves cruelly cut off from the wireless world.
這時我們發(fā)現(xiàn)被無情地切斷與無線世界的聯(lián)系。