青春不是人生的一个阶段

　　一段广为传播的文字。

　　青春，不是人生的一个阶段，而是一种心境。青春，不是指粉红的面颊，红润的嘴唇和柔韧的膝盖，而是指坚强的意志、丰富的想象和激越的情感。青春，是生命伸出的一泓清泉。

　　青春，指气质上勇猛果敢而不怯懦退缩，渴求冒险而不妄图安逸。一位60岁的老人身上常常散发出青春着这种气息，而在一个20岁的小伙子身上倒未必可寻。没有人会仅仅因为年岁的增长而变得衰老，我们是由于丧失理想才变得衰老。

　　年岁或许在皮肤上生出皱纹，而热情不再则会使心灵起皱。忧虑、恐惧、自卑，都会让人心灰意懒。

　　无论是60岁还是16岁，每一个人心里都怀有对新奇事物的向往，都会像孩童一样对未来充满永不衰减的憧憬，都能在生活的游戏中汲取快乐。在你我的心灵中央都有一座无限电台;只要它能接收倒其他人和上帝发出的美、希望、快乐、勇气和力量的信息，你就会永葆青春。

　　当你的天线收拢，当你的心灵覆盖着愤世嫉俗的霜雪和悲观厌世的坚冰，即使你年方20，你也已经进入了垂暮之年。然而，只要你的天线张开，接收着乐观向上的电波，那么，你就可以指望，在80岁死去时仍然年轻。

　　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 child-like 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.