书城外语当英语成为时尚:生活全由你创造
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第2章 It"s Never Too Late for Success成功永远不会太晚

Charles D.Rice

心灵寄语

你是否觉得自己离成功很遥远,甚至怀疑自己一生都不会获取成功呢?那么,让我告诉你,只要我们心中存有成功的梦想,只要有信心,目标坚定,那么时间将证明一切,成功永远不会太晚!

You and your parents can stop worrying—Pasteur, Edison, Darwin and lots more were far from being geniuses in their teens.

History books seldom mention it, but the truth is that many of our greatest figures were practically“beatniks1”when they were teenagers. They were given to daydreaming, indecision, hebetude2(plain dullness),and they showed no promise of being a doctor, lawyer or Indian chief.

So, young men and women, if you suffer from the same symptoms, don"t despair. The world was built by men and women whose parents worried that they would“never amount to a hill of beans”. You don"t hear too much about their early failures because parents prefer to cite more inspiring examples.

So it goes. You have the Wright brothers, who were brilliant at engineering in their early teens, and you have Thomas Alva Edison, whose teacher tried to get him out of the class because his brain was“addle3”. You have the Nobel Prize physicist Enrico Fermi, who at 17 had read enough mathematics to qualify for a doctor"s degree. And you have the great Albert Schweitzer, who wavered between music and the church until he was 30. Then he started his medical studies.

And added to all the aforementioned paradoxes4,you have a small army of child prodigies who graduated from college when they were 15,and are now obscure clerks in accounting departments. And you have a small army of men who were too stupid or indolent to get into or finish college and who are today presidents of the firms that hire the prodigies.

So who"s to say what about youth?Any young boy or girl who knows what he wants to do in life is probably better off for it. But no teenager needs despair of the future. He has that one special advantage over the greatest man alive—time.

查尔斯·D·赖斯

你和你的父母都可以停止焦虑了——因为巴斯德、爱迪生、达尔文以及许多其他的伟人在十几岁的时候都远非天才。

历史书几乎都不会提及这一点,但事实上我们所熟知的许多伟人在青少年时期都属于“垮掉的一代”。他们喜欢做白日梦、做事优柔寡断、总是无精打采(反应迟钝),没有征兆显示他们将来会成为医生、律师或是印第安酋长。

因此,年轻小伙子和姑娘们,如果你们正遭受着同样的症状,不要绝望。这个世界是由这样的孩子组成的,他们的父母总是担心他们“永远难成大器”。你对那些伟人早期失败的经历知之甚少,因为父母们更喜欢引用一些能激励你上进的例子。

于是事情就这样发展了。你们听过莱特兄弟的故事,他们年仅十几岁,但精通工程力学的知识;你们听说了爱迪生的故事,他的老师因为他的脑子“笨”而要建议他辍学;你们也听过获诺贝尔奖的物理学家恩里科·费密的故事,他17岁时的数学知识水平就足以获得博士学位;你们一定也没有错过伟大的阿尔伯特·施韦策的故事,他在30岁之前都一直在音乐和神学之间游离,之后他又开始了对医学的研究。

除了前面提到的一些似是而非的事例。我们还有这样的例子,有一小批神童,年仅15岁他们就大学毕业,但是现在却是会计部门平凡的职员。而另一小批人小时候则被认为太笨、懒惰,他们要么没有进入大学,要么大学拿不到毕业证,但是正是这些人现在当着总裁,雇用着那些所谓的小神童。

所以谁能在小时候就预知以后的事情呢?任何有明确人生目标的青年男女,也许都能生活得更加幸福。但是青少年不必为前途感到绝望,与这个世上现存的最伟大的人相比,他们有一个特殊的优势——时光。

词汇空间 ocabulary

1.beatnik n.垮掉的一代

2.hebetude n.迟钝倦怠,没精打采

3.addle adj.昏乱的,糊涂的

4.paradox n.悖论,怪人,怪事

文化链接 Culture Background

1.路易斯·巴斯德(Louis Pasteur,1822.12.27~1895.9.25)

路易斯·巴斯德,法国微生物学家、化学家,近代微生物学的奠基人。像牛顿开辟出经典力学一样,巴斯德开辟了微生物领域,创立了一整套独特的微生物学基本研究方法,开始用“实践—理论—实践”的方法研究,他是一位科学巨人。

2.垮掉的一代(Beat Generation)

第二次世界大战后风行于美国的文学流派。该流派的作家都是性格粗犷豪放、落拓不羁的男女青年,他们生活简单、不修边幅,喜穿奇装异服,厌弃工作和学业,拒绝承担任何社会义务,以浪迹天涯为乐,蔑视社会的法纪秩序,反对一切世俗陈规和垄断资本统治,抵制对外侵略和种族隔离,讨厌机器文明,他们永远寻求新的刺激,寻求绝对自由,纵欲、吸毒、沉沦,以此向体面的传统价值标准进行挑战,因此被称作垮掉的一代。代表作家有金斯堡、海明威。

3.莱特兄弟(Wright Brothers)

莱特兄弟指的是奥维尔(1871—1948)和维尔伯(1867—1912)这两位美国人。世人一般认为他们于1903年12月17日首次完成完全受控制、附机载外部动力、机体比空气重、持续滞空不落地的飞行,并因此将发明了世界上第一架实用飞机的成就归功给他们。

妙语拾珠

1.Any young boy or girl who knows what he wants to do in life is probably better off for it.

任何有明确人生目标的青年男女,也许都能生活得更加幸福。

2.But no teenager needs despair of the future. He has that one special advantage over the greatest man alive—time.

但是青少年不必为前途感到绝望,与这个世上现存的最伟大的人相比,他们有一个特殊的优势——时光。