英语智慧背囊11-时间的价值

[00:00.00]The Value of Time 时间的价值
[00:04.18]“Time”, says the proverb, "is money".
[00:08.45]This means that every moment well-spent may put some money into our pockets.
[00:13.72]If our time is usefully employed,
[00:15.90]it will either turn out some useful and important piece of work
[00:19.72]which will fetch its price in the market,
[00:21.51]or it will add to our experience and increase our capacities
[00:24.92]so as to enable us to earn money
[00:27.23]when the proper opportunity comes.
[00:29.21]Let those, who think nothing of wasting time, remember this.
[00:32.81]Our life is nothing more than our time.
[00:35.20]To kill time is therefore a form of suicide.
[00:38.72]We are shocked when we think of death,
[00:41.12]and we spare no pains, no trouble,
[00:43.42]and no expense to preserve life.
[00:45.37]But we are too often indifferent to the loss of an hour or of a day,
[00:49.33]forgetting that our life is the sum total of the days
[00:52.93]and of the hours we live.
[00:54.03]A day or an hour wasted is therefore so much life forfeited.
[00:58.29]Our life is a brief life span measuring some seventy or eighty years in all.
[01:03.11]But nearly one third of this has to be spent in sleep;
[01:06.26]some years have to be spent over our meals;
[01:09.01]some in making journeys on land and voyages by sea;
[01:12.61]some in merry-making;
[01:14.15]some in watching over the sick-beds of our nearest and dearest relatives.
[01:17.87]Now if all these years were to be deducted from the term
[01:21.46]over which our life extends,
[01:23.01]we shall find about twenty or thirty years
[01:25.43]at our disposal for active work.
[01:27.71]Whoever remembers this can never willingly
[01:30.46]waste a single moment of his life.
[01:32.41]All time is precious;
[01:34.28]but the time of our childhood and of our youth
[01:36.99]is more precious than any other portion of our existence.
[01:39.97]For those are the periods
[01:41.70]when alone we can acquire knowledge and develop our capacities.
[01:45.21]If we allow these morning hours of life to slip away,
[01:48.49]we shall never be able to recoup the loss.
[01:51.56]Just as money laid out at interests doubles and trebles itself in time,
[01:56.48]so the precious hours of childhood and youth,
[01:59.11]if properly used,
[02:00.65]will yield us incalculable advantages.