■ 成功之路，永不言遲

It’s Never Too Late for Success

You and your parents can stop worrying—Edison, Darwin and lots more were far from being geniuses in their teens.

History books seldom mention it, but the truth is that many of our greatest figures were practically “beatniks” when they were teenagers. They were given to daydreaming, indecision, hebetude[71] (plain dullness), and they showed no promise of being a doctor, lawyer or teacher.

So, young men and women, if you suffer from the same symptoms, don’t despair. The world was built by men and women whose parents worried that they would “never amount to a hill of beans”. You don’t hear too much about their early failures because parents prefer to cite more inspiring examples.

你和你的父母可以不必?fù)?dān)憂了——愛迪生、達(dá)爾文還有許多其他人在他們年少時(shí)遠(yuǎn)非天才。

歷史書上很少提到這些，但事實(shí)是：我們?cè)S多偉人在他們青少年時(shí)是“垮掉的一代”。他們也會(huì)做白日夢(mèng)，也會(huì)優(yōu)柔寡斷，也會(huì)犯傻。而且，他們身上也沒有顯現(xiàn)出能夠成為醫(yī)生、律師或教師的潛質(zhì)。

所以，年輕的男女們，如果你們遇到了同樣的狀況，不必絕望。這個(gè)世界就是由那些父母擔(dān)心會(huì)一事無成的男男女女創(chuàng)造的。他們?cè)缒晔〉氖虑?，想必你很少聽說，因?yàn)楦改父矚g引用更多鼓舞人心的例子。

EDISON WAS “ADDLED”

In the sciences, there have been hundreds of geniuses who aimed straight at the goal from their earliest years, and hundreds who showed no aptitude at all. So it goes. You have the Wright Brothers, who were brilliant in engineering in their early teens, and you have Thomas Alva Edison, whose teacher tried to get him out of the class because his brain was “addled”. You have the Nobel Prize physicist Enrico Fermi, who at 17 had read enough mathematics to qualify for a doctor’s degree. And you have the great Albert Schweitzer, who wavered between music and the church until he was 30. Then he started his medical studies.

愛迪生是“愚蠢”的

在科學(xué)領(lǐng)域里，有許多天才在早年時(shí)便瞄準(zhǔn)了自己的目標(biāo)，而有的卻從未顯露過自己的天賦。就是因?yàn)檫@樣，我們才有了從小擅長機(jī)械引擎的萊特兄弟;有了因?yàn)?ldquo;愚蠢”而差點(diǎn)被老師趕出教室的托馬斯·阿爾瓦·愛迪生;有了17歲便博覽數(shù)學(xué)類書籍并獲得博士學(xué)位的諾貝爾物理學(xué)獎(jiǎng)獲得者恩里科·費(fèi)米;有了30歲之前還在音樂和牧師之間猶豫不決，之后才開始學(xué)醫(yī)的偉大的埃博特·施威茨。

DARWIN HATED SCHOOL

Charles Darwin’s early life was a mess. He hated school, and his father once shouted, “You care for nothing but shooting dogs and rat catching, and you will be a disgrace[72] to yourself and all your family!” He was sent to Glasgow to study medicine, but he couldn’t stand the sight of blood. He was sent to divinity school and barely managed to graduate. Whereupon he chucked the whole business and shipped out to the South Seas on the famous exploring ship Beagle. On that voyage, one of history’s greatest scientists was born. It was here that he collected the material for the book that would revolutionize biological science—The Origin of the Species .

達(dá)爾文討厭上學(xué)

查爾斯·達(dá)爾文早年的生活就像一團(tuán)亂麻。他討厭上學(xué)。有一次，父親沖他大聲喊道：“除了打狗和追老鼠，你什么都不會(huì)。你會(huì)成為你自己和家人的恥辱!”就這樣，他被送到格拉斯哥學(xué)醫(yī)，可是他一見到血就暈。無奈之下，他又被送到神學(xué)院，可是他卻無法畢業(yè)。于是他拋下一切，乘坐著名的探險(xiǎn)之船——比格——來到南海。歷史上最偉大的科學(xué)家之一就在此次航海中誕生了。《物種起源》——這本足以引發(fā)一場生物科學(xué)變革的書，它的素材就是在這次航海中收集到的。