On Achieving Success
欧内斯特·海明威/Ernest Hemingway
我们不可能穿越每条路,要想取得成功,需要在一条道路上执着前行。我们需要把自己毕生的精力放在一个目标上,其他的则放在其从属地位。
我厌烦做事半途而废。假如这件事是正确的,就放手去做;若不正确,就不要去做。
历史上的伟人并不会长久地观望镜中的自己,以衡量自己的形象,他们已在孜孜不倦的工作中看到了自己。他们有了非凡的成就,因此世人感觉他们如此伟大,并把他们称为伟人。
为了崇高的理想而活着是一种成功的生活。一个人之所以强大,并不是因为他做了什么,而是因为他努力尝试去做什么。
有人说:“恒久的警惕是自由的代价。”换一种说法就是,“不懈的努力是成功的代价。”如果我们没有在工作中全力以赴,而别人是在竭尽全力,他们就会在之后的竞争中超越我们,并将胜利的果实从我们的手中夺走。
成功越来越不依赖于运气和巧合。缺乏自信是导致我们失败的主要原因。
性格是获取成功的不可或缺的主要助力。它是一种明确的习惯,是不断培养和坚定信心的结果。每个人的性格都会受到遗传、环境和教育的影响。除此以外,假如一个人在很大程度上不能成为自我性格的构建者,他就会沦为宿命论者,进而成为环境的失败产物。
与其说人是环境的产物,倒不如说人是环境的构建者。同样的材料,这个人用它建造出宫殿,而其他人只能搭造出简陋的小屋。在建筑师把它们变成其他物体之前,砖依然是砖,泥依然是泥。
想拥有更多就永远不要奢望太多。睿智的人是不会在意他们得不到的东西的。
We cannot travel every path. Success must be won along one line. We must make our business the one life purpose to which every other must be subordinate.
I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly. If it be wrong, leave it undone.
The men of history were not perpetually looking into the mirror to make sure of their own size. Absorbed in their work they did it. They did it so well that the wondering world sees them to be great, and labeled them accordingly.
To live with a high ideal is a successful life. It is not what one does, but what one tries to do, that makes a man strong."Eternal vigilance," it has been said," is the price of liberty." With equal truth it may be said, "Unceasing effort is the price of success." If we do not work with our might, others will; and they will outstrip us in the race, and pluck the prize from our grasp.
Success grows less and less dependent on luck and chance. Self-distrust is the cause of most of our failures.
The great and indispensable help to success is character. Character is a crystallized habit, the result of training and conviction. Every character is influenced by heredity, environment and education. But these apart, if every man were not to be a great extent the architect of his own character, he would be a fatalist, and irresponsible creature of circumstances.
Instead of saying that man is a creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance. From the same materials one man builds palaces, another hovel. Bricks and mortar are mortar and bricks, until the architect can make them something else.
The tree way to gain much is never to desire to gain too much. Wise men don't care for what they can't have.