《青春》一文，但愿为你带来更多的信心和勇气

[简介]作者塞缪尔乌尔曼（18401924），美国文人，70岁才开始文学创作。《青春》被美国一将军挂在办公室中；而西方商业巨子也把本文常置案头，作为精神动力。

　　但愿本文能带给你更多的信心和勇气！

译版：

　　青春不是生命的时间段；它是心智的状态；它不是粉红的面颊、红色的嘴唇和柔软的双膝；它是负载意志的实体，展示想象的品性，充满激情的活力。它是生命中深泉的鲜活。

　　青春，意味着勇气蓬勃的优势，盖过那欲望的胆怯，冒险精神胜过安逸之心。这一切，六十岁的老人比二十岁的青年拥有更多。没有人仅随年岁的增长而衰老。我们是因抛弃理想而衰老。

　　岁月可使肌肤褶皱，放弃激情却使心灵褶皱。忧虑，惶恐，丧失自信，把心灵弯曲，令意气化为灰尘。

　　不论六十岁还是十六岁，每个人心中都有新事物的诱惑，孩童般不衰的新鲜感，和生活游戏的欢喜。你我的心中都有一个无线电台；只要它接受美丽、希望、振奋、勇气和力量的信号――从人间，也从浩瀚苍穹，你就会拥有青春。

　　一旦天线倒下，你的心灵就被愤世之雪和悲观之冰覆盖，你就此衰老，即使年方二旬；但只要你树起天线，接收乐观的电波，你在八旬高龄故去时，仍然有望年轻。

原版：

　　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.