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引言：

他一旦停止成长，他一旦对自己说“我该懂的都懂了”，这个时候他的青春也就完了。他可能在25岁时死去，也可能在75岁时死去，这都没有区别。就在那一天，他开始变老。

"I dread to come to the end of the year,said a friend to me recently, "it makes me realize I am growing old.”

William James, the great psychologist, said that most men are "old fogies 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.

The minutea 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.

Goethe 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 immense."

And there you have the real answer to the question, "When is a man old?"

Laplace at seventy-eight died young. He was still unsatisfied, still sure that he had a lot to learn.

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.

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.

参考译文

“我惧怕临近岁末年尾”，一位朋友最近对我说：“它使我意识到我正在变老。”

伟大的心理学家威廉·詹姆斯就曾说过，大多数人“25岁时就成了守旧落伍者”。他的话是对的。大多数人25岁时就满足于他们的工作。他们已经积累了一些他们称之为“原则”的偏见，对所有新的思想关闭心灵之门；他们已经停止成长。

一个人一旦停止成长--不管他年龄多大--他就开始衰老。反之，真正的伟人从来不会衰老。

歌德享年83岁，逝世前几年才完成《浮士德》；格莱斯顿70岁时又开始学习一门外国语；法国天文学家拉普拉斯78岁死时还在工作着。临死前，他大声喊道：“我们所知的太少太少，我们所不知的太多太多。”

“一个人何时变老？”，从这类事例中对这个问题你已经有了真正的答案。

拉普拉斯78岁逝世时依然年轻。他依旧不满足，依旧感到许多东西要学。

一个人，只要他能够保持这种心态，只要他在回首过去的一年时能够说“我在成长”，他就依然年轻。

他一旦停止成长，他一旦对自己说“我该懂的都懂了”，这个时候他的青春也就完了。他可能在25岁时死去，也可能在75岁时死去，这都没有区别。就在那一天，他开始变老。

词汇释义

1.fogy n. 守旧者,赶不上时代的人

例句：

Because of his fogy ideas, Old Tom brought the house about his ears.
由于他的顽固观念，汤姆惹得全家与他为敌。

2.astronomer n. 天文学家

例句：

He is the best one of those astronomers.
他是那些天文学家中最优秀的一个。

3.immense adj. 巨大的,广大的

例句：

It's almost impossible to find him in the immense ocean.
在无边无际的海洋中要找到他几乎是不可能的。