The significant inscription found on an old key---“If I rest, I rust”---would be an excellent motto for those who are afflicted with the slightest bit of idleness. Even the most industrious person might adopt it with advantage to serve as a reminder that, if one allows his faculties to rest, like the iron in the unused key, they will soon show signs of rust and, ultimately, cannot do the work required of them.

　　Those who would attain the heights reached and kept by great men must keep their faculties polished by constant use, so that they may unlock the doors of knowledge, the gate that guard the entrances to the professions, to science, art, literature, agriculture---every department of human endeavor.

　　Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasury of achievement. If Hugh Miller, after toiling all day in a quarry, had devoted his evenings to rest and recreation, he would never have become a famous geologist. The celebrated mathematician, Edmund Stone, would never have published a mathematical dictionary, never have found the key to science of mathematics, if he had given his spare moments to idleness, had the little Scotch lad, Ferguson, allowed the busy brain to go to sleep while he tended sheep on the hillside instead of calculating the position of the stars by a string of beads, he would never have become a famous astronomer.

　　Labor vanquishes all---not inconstant, spasmodic, or ill-directed labor; but faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose. Just as truly as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry the price of noble and enduring success.

　　假如休息太久，我就會生銹

　　在一把舊鑰匙上發現了一則意思深遠的銘文——如果我休息，我就會生銹。對那些懶惰而懊惱的人來說，這將是至理名言。甚至最為勤懇的人也以此作為警示：如果一個人有才能而不必，就像放棄鑰匙上的鐵一樣，這些能力就會很快生銹，并終極無奈實現部署給本人的工作。

　　有些人想獲得巨人所取得并保持的成績，他們就必需一直應用本身才干，以便開啟常識的大門，即那些通往人類盡力探究的各個范疇的大門，這些領域包含各種職業：迷信，藝術，文學，農業等。

　　勤懇使開啟勝利寶庫的鑰匙堅持光明。如果休•米勒在采石場勞作一天后，晚上的時間用來休息消遣的話，他就不會成為流芳百世的地質學家。有名數學家愛德蒙• 斯通如果空閑時起早貪黑，就不會出版數學詞典，也不會發明開啟數學之門的鑰匙。如果蘇格蘭青年弗格森在山坡上放羊時，讓他那思維活潑的大腦處于休息狀況，而不是借助一串珠子盤算星星的地位，他就不會成為著名的地理學家。

　　勞動馴服所有。這里所指的勞動不是斷斷續續的，間歇性的或方向偏差的勞動，而是動搖的，不懈的，方向準確的逐日勞動。正如要想領有自在就要時刻保持警戒一樣，要想取得巨大的，長久的成功，就必須堅定不移地努力。

本文來自：逍遙右腦記憶 /lizhi/266138.html

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