晨读英语美文100篇 Passage 82. Youth

[00:00.53]Passage 82. Youth

[00:04.25]Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind;

[00:11.80]it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees;

[00:15.96]it is a matter of will, a quality of imagination,a vigor of the emotions;

[00:22.74]it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

[00:25.80]Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity,

[00:32.26]of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.

[00:35.76]This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20.

[00:41.45]Nobody grows old merely by a number of years.

[00:45.28]We grow old by deserting our ideals.

[00:48.67]Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.

[00:55.23]Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

[01:02.67]Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder,

[01:10.01]the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of living.

[01:15.70]In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station:

[01:21.18]so long as it receives messages of beauty,hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite,

[01:29.81]so long as you are young.

[01:31.89]When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism,

[01:41.08]then you are grown old, even at 20,

[01:44.03]but as long as your aerials are up to catch waves of optimism,

[01:48.08]there is hope you may die young at 80.