■ 成功之路，永不言迟

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担忧了——爱迪生、达尔文还有许多其他人在他们年少时远非天才。

历史书上很少提到这些，但事实是：我们许多伟人在他们青少年时是“垮掉的一代”。他们也会做白日梦，也会优柔寡断，也会犯傻。而且，他们身上也没有显现出能够成为医生、律师或教师的潜质。

所以，年轻的男女们，如果你们遇到了同样的状况，不必绝望。这个世界就是由那些父母担心会一事无成的男男女女创造的。他们早年失败的事情，想必你很少听说，因为父母更喜欢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.

爱迪生是“愚蠢”的

在科学领域里，有许多天才在早年时便瞄准了自己的目标，而有的却从未显露过自己的天赋。就是因为这样，我们才有了从小擅长机械引擎的莱特兄弟;有了因为“愚蠢”而差点被老师赶出教室的托马斯·阿尔瓦·爱迪生;有了17岁便博览数学类书籍并获得博士学位的诺贝尔物理学奖获得者恩里科·费米;有了30岁之前还在音乐和牧师之间犹豫不决，之后才开始学医的伟大的埃博特·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 .

达尔文讨厌上学

查尔斯·达尔文早年的生活就像一团乱麻。他讨厌上学。有一次，父亲冲他大声喊道：“除了打狗和追老鼠，你什么都不会。你会成为你自己和家人的耻辱!”就这样，他被送到格拉斯哥学医，可是他一见到血就晕。无奈之下，他又被送到神学院，可是他却无法毕业。于是他抛下一切，乘坐著名的探险之船——比格——来到南海。历史上最伟大的科学家之一就在此次航海中诞生了。《物种起源》——这本足以引发一场生物科学变革的书，它的素材就是在这次航海中收集到的。