峰言峰語

◎烏曼（Samuel Ullman，1840-1924，猶太詩人）
《青春》
YOUTH 


青春不在於生命的時間，而是在於心境，
它關乎意志的強度，想像的品質，如同生命深泉那樣清新。
Youth is not a time of life—it is a state of mind.  It is not a matter of red cheeks, red lips and supple knees. 
It is a temper of the will; a quality of the imagination; a vigor of the emotions; it is a freshness of the deep springs of life. 


青春意味勇氣戰勝怯懦，冒險心壓倒好逸惡勞。
沒有人只隨時光的流轉老去，只因放棄理想而變老。
Youth means a tempermental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over a life of ease. 
This often exists in a man of fifty, more than in a boy of twenty. 
Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old by deserting their ideals. 


歲月可使皮膚變皺，放棄熱情使心靈起皺，
擔心、恐懼、不信任自己，讓心萎靡，叫精神化為塵土。
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. 
Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair— these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. 


不論是六十或七十歲，心裡仍藏好奇的誘惑，
如孩童般對未來充滿疑問，含生活遊戲的樂趣。
Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being’s heart a love of wonder; the sweet amazement at the stars and starlike things and thoughts; 
the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what comes next, and the joy in the game of life. 
You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair. 


人人心中暗裝一只無線電台，
只要從人和上帝那裡接收到美麗、希望、歡樂、勇氣和力量，你就保持青春。
In the central place of your heart there is a wireless station. 
So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, grandeur, courage, and power from the earth, from men and from the Infinite—so long are you young.


天線一壞，你的精神被偏激的雪，悲觀的冰所覆蓋，
人就變老，即使你只有二十歲也一樣。
 When the wires are all down and the central places of your heart are covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then are you grown old, indeed!


一旦天線重接，樂觀電波再觸，
即使你八十歲逝世，也算英年早逝。