Choose Optimisms By Rich DeVos
If you expect something to turn out badly, it probably will.
Pessimism is seldom disappointed. But the same principle also works in reverse. If you expect good things to happen, they usually do! There seems to be a natural cause-and-effect relationship between optimism and success.
Optimism and pessimism are both powerful forces, and each of us must choose which we want to shape our outlook and our expectations. There is enough good and bad in everyone's life -- ample sorrow and happiness, sufficient joy and pain -- to find a rational basis for either optimism or pessimism. We can choose to laugh or cry, bless or curse. It's our decision: From which perspective do we want to view life? Will we look up in hope or down in despair？
I believe in the upward look. I choose to highlight the positive and slip right over the negative. I am an optimist by choice as much as by nature. Sure, I know that sorrow exists. I am in my 70s now, and I’ve lived through more than one crisis. But when all is said and done, I found that the good in life far outweighs the bad.
An optimistic attitude is not a luxury; it's a necessity. The way you look at life will determine how you feel, how you perform, and how well you will get along with other people. Conversely, negative thoughts, attitudes, and expectations feed on themselves; they become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Pessimism creates a dismal place where no one wants to live.
选择乐观（译文）
倘若你认为某事情况不妙，结局也许就真的不妙。
悲观的思想很少落空。反之亦然：如果你感到鸿运当头，通常会有好运降临！乐观与成功之间似乎存在一种自然的因果关系。
乐观和悲观皆有强大的力量。每个人都必须选择其一，它影响着我们对未来的展望和憧憬。每个人生命中都充满了顺境和逆境——不尽的悲伤和喜悦、无数的欢乐和苦楚——使我们或者乐观亦或悲观。我们可以选择是欢笑还是哭泣、祝福还是诅咒。我们可以决定如何看待生活——是在希望中前进还是在绝望中消沉。
我喜欢充满希望地生活。我会把注意力集中在生活中的阳光的一面，而忽略那些阴暗的角落。我是一个乐观主义者，天性使然，经历使然。我知道生命中总会有伤痛，年逾古稀的我曾不止一次经历过苦难。然而，当一切都成往事，我发现生命中的欢乐远比苦痛更铭心。 乐观不是一种奢侈品；而是生活的必需。你看待生活的方式将决定你的感受，你的表现，以及你的处世之道。反之，悲观的思想、态度和预期也会自成因果：它们如同自我实现的预言。悲观会产生人迹罕至的黑暗之地。
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Of Studies Francis Bacon
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert man can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgement wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proying, by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict or confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading makes a full man; conference a full man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
读书 王佐良 译
读书足以怡情，足以傅彩，足以长才。其怡情也，最见于独处幽居之时；其傅彩也，最见于高谈阔论之中；其长才也，最见于处世判事之际。练达之士虽能分别处理细事或一一判别枝节，然纵观统筹，全局策划，则舍好学深思者莫属。读书费时过多易惰，文采藻饰太盛则矫，全凭条文断事乃学究故态。读书补天然之不足，经验又补读书之不足，盖天生才干犹如自然花草，读书然后知如何修剪移接，而书中所示，如不以经验范之，则又大而无当。有一技之长者鄙读书，无知者羡读书，唯明智之士用读书，然书并不以用处告人，用书之智不在书中，而在书外，全凭观察得之。读书时不可存心诘难读者，不可尽信书上所言，亦不可只为寻章摘句，而应推敲细思。
书有可浅尝者，有可吞食者，少数则须咀嚼消化。换言之，有只需读其部分者，有只须大体涉猎者，少数则须全读，读时须全神贯注，孜孜不倦。书亦可请人代读，取其所作摘要，但只限题材较次或价值不高者，否则书经提炼犹如水经蒸馏，淡而无味。读书使人充实，讨论使人机智，笔记使人准确。因此不常做笔记者须记忆力特强，不常讨论者须天生聪颖，不常读书者须欺世有术，始能无知而显知。读史使人明智，读诗使人灵秀，数学使人周密，科学使人深刻，伦理学使人庄重，逻辑修辞之学使人善辩；凡有所学，皆成性格。
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