As food is to the body, so is learning to the mind. Our bodies grow and muscles develop with the intake of adequate nutritious food. Likewise, we should keep learning day by day to maintain our keen mental power and expand our intellectual capacity. Constant learning supplies us with inexhaustible fuel for driving us to sharpen our power of reasoning, analysis, and judgment. Learning incessantly is the surest way to keep pace with the times in the information age, and an infallible warrant of success in times of uncertainty.
Once learning stops, vegetation sets in. It is a common fallacy to regard school as the only workshop for the acquisition of knowledge. On the contrary, learning should be a never-ending process, from the cradle to the grave. With the world ever changing so fast, the cease from learning for just a few days will make a person lag behind. What's worse, the animalistic instinct dormant deep in our subconsciousness will come to life, weakening our will to pursue our noble ideal, sapping our determination to sweep away obstacles to our success and strangling our desire for the refinement of our character. Lack of learning will inevitably lead to the stagnation of the mind, or even worse, its fossilization, Therefore, to stay mentally young, we have to take learning as a lifelong career.
學(xué)習(xí)之于心靈，就像食物之于身體一樣。攝取了適量的營養(yǎng)食物，我們的身體得以生長而肌肉得以發(fā)達(dá)。同樣地，我們應(yīng)該日復(fù)一日不斷地學(xué)習(xí)以保持我們敏銳的心智能力，并擴(kuò)充我們的智力容量。不斷的學(xué)習(xí)提供我們用不盡的燃料，來驅(qū)使我們磨利我們的推理、分析和判斷的能力。持續(xù)的學(xué)習(xí)是在信息時(shí)代中跟時(shí)代并駕齊驅(qū)的最穩(wěn)當(dāng)?shù)姆椒ǎ彩窃谧儎?dòng)的世代中成功的可靠保證。
一旦學(xué)習(xí)停止，單調(diào)貧乏的生活就開始了。視學(xué)校為汲取知識(shí)的唯一場(chǎng)所是種常見的謬誤。相反地，學(xué)習(xí)應(yīng)該是一種無終止的歷程，從生到死。由于世界一直快速地在變動(dòng)，只要學(xué)習(xí)停頓數(shù)日就將使人落后。更糟的是，蟄伏在我們潛意識(shí)深處的獸性本能就會(huì)復(fù)活，削弱我們追求高貴理想的意志，弱化我們掃除成功障礙的決心，而且扼殺我們凈化我們?nèi)烁竦挠Ｈ鄙賹W(xué)習(xí)將不可避免地導(dǎo)致心靈的停滯，甚至更糟地，使其僵化。因此，為了保持心理年輕，我們必須將學(xué)習(xí)當(dāng)作一生的事業(yè)。