对生活的持久满足（四）

对生活的持久满足（四）

课程导读

在上一节课中，我们读到的同代人对我们的评价是不可避免而且影响巨大的，这些评价中，有一部分是对我们的评价，而这些评价的来源可能是我们没有谈话过，甚至没有印象的同代人。

因此，我们要做好准备，就如同艾略特校长说的那句话“You had better now in college to get ready to appear before the ultimate tribunal”，我们最好为将来的终极审判做准备。

那怎样做才算准备好了呢？这节课一起继续来读后续内容。

英文原文

Live now in the fear of that tribunal, —not an abject fear, because independence is an indispensable quality in the honorable man.

There is an admirable phrase in the Declaration of Independence, a document which it was the good fashion of my time for boys to commit to memory.

I doubt if that fashion still obtains. Some of our public action looks as if it did not.

“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

That phrase - “a decent respect”—is a very happy one.

Cherish “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” but never let that interfere with your personal declaration of independence.


Begin now to prepare for the judgment of the ultimate tribunal.

Look forward to the important crises of your life.

They are nearer than you are apt to imagine.

It is a very safe protective rule to live today as if you are going to marry a pure woman within a month.

That rule you will find a safeguard for worthy living.

It is a good rule to endeavor hour by hour and week after week to learn to work hard.

It is not well to take four minutes to do what you can accomplish in three.

It is not well to take four years to do what you can perfectly accomplish in three.

It is well to work intensely.

You will hear a good deal of advice about letting your soul grow “and breathing in without effort the atmosphere of a learned society or place of learning.

Well, you cannot help breathing and you cannot help growing; these processes will take care of themselves.

The question for you from day to day is how to learn to work to advantage, and college is the place and now is the time to win mental power.

And, lastly, live today and every day like a man of honor.