"I dread（惧怕） to come to the end of the year, said a friend to me recently," it makes me realize I am growing old."
William James, the great psychologist, said that most men are "old fogies at twenty-five", He was right. Most men at twenty-five are satisfied with their jobs. They have accumulated the little stock of prejudices that they call their "Principles," and closed their minds to all new ideas. They have ceased to grow.
The minutea man ceases to grow-no matter what his years-that minute he begins to be old. On the other hand, the really great man never grows old.
Goethe passed out at eighty-three, and finished his Faust only a few years earlier; Gladstone took up a new language when he was seventy.
Laplace, the astronomer, was still at work when death caught up with him at seventy-eight. He died crying, "What we know is nothing; what we do not know is immense."
And there you have the real answer to the question, "When is a man old?"
Laplace at seventy-eight died young. He was still unsatisfied, still sure that he had a lot to learn.
As long as a man can keep himself in that attitude of mind, as long as he can look back on every year and say, "I grew," he is still young.
The minute he ceases to grow, the minute he says to himself, "I know all that I need to know," --that day youth stops. He may be twenty-five or seventy-five, it makes no difference. On that day he begins to be old.
相关单词：dread
dread解释：vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧
dread例句：
We all dread to think what will happen if the company closes.我们都不敢去想一旦公司关门我们该怎么办。
Her heart was relieved of its blankest dread.她极度恐惧的心理消除了。
相关单词：astronomer
astronomer解释：n.天文学家
astronomer例句：
A new star attracted the notice of the astronomer.新发现的一颗星引起了那位天文学家的注意。
He is reputed to have been a good astronomer.他以一个优秀的天文学者闻名于世。
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