By Samuel Ullman

An article loved since youth :)

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 body 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 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 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.

青春不是指生命的一段時間，而是指一種精神狀態(tài)；它并不是指紅潤的面頰、透紅的嘴唇和靈便的腿腳，而是指堅強的意志、豐富的想象和強烈的感情，它是指生命深泉的活水清新之感。

青春意味著在氣質(zhì)上勇敢蓋過怯懦，冒險進取壓倒舒適茍安。這在60歲的老年人中往往比在20歲的青年人中更為常見。人之變老不僅由于年歲的增長，我們之變老常常是因為放棄了對理想的追求。

年歲也許會使皮膚增添皺紋，可是一旦喪失熱忱，靈魂上的皺紋就會隨即出現(xiàn)。憂慮、恐懼和缺乏信心會使人心灰意冷，意志消沉。

無論是60歲，還是16歲，新奇事物對每個人都有吸引力；只要童心未泯，就會對未來有好奇心和享受人生的樂趣。在你的心中和我的心中都有一座無線電臺：只要它總在接收人類和上帝發(fā)出的美、希望、鼓勵、勇氣和力量的信息，你就會永遠不老。

假如你將天線收起，使你的心靈蒙上玩世不恭的霜雪和悲觀厭世的冰層，那么即使你年方20，你也老氣橫秋；然而只要你將天線豎起，去接收樂觀主義的電波，那么你就有希望即使活到80歲死去，也仍然是年輕的。