青春不是年華，而是心境；青春不是丹唇皓齒，而是堅定的意志，不羈的想象和奔放的情緒……

歲月褶皺的只是肌膚，而不是心靈。架起心靈天線，捕捉樂觀、希望、勇氣和力量的信號，你將青春永駐，即使到了古稀之年，告別塵寰之際，你將覺得自己依然年輕。

塞繆爾·厄爾曼的這篇佳作堪稱為“青春”一詞最好的詮釋。
 

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy（粉紅色的） cheeks, red lips and supple（柔軟的） 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 tempera-mental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle（使…變皺）the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spring back to dust.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being' s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike 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（天線）are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.

Samuel Ullman (1840 Hechingen, Germany - March 21, 1924) was an American businessman, poet, humanitarian.


（中國日報網站編譯）