青春不是年华，而是心境；青春不是丹唇皓齿，而是坚定的意志，不羁的想象和奔放的情绪……

岁月褶皱的只是肌肤，而不是心灵。架起心灵天线，捕捉乐观、希望、勇气和力量的信号，你将青春永驻，即使到了古稀之年，告别尘寰之际，你将觉得自己依然年轻。

塞缪尔·厄尔曼的这篇佳作堪称为“青春”一词最好的诠释。
 

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy（粉红色的） cheeks, red lips and supple（柔软的） 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…变皱）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（天线）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.


（中国日报网站编译）