把握現在－愛德華 愛芙脫

我們中有許多人常在疲乏或苦悶時，總會回顧一下自己日常所做的工作而感到沒有信心，「我所做的這一切工作究竟有什麼用處呢？」在這種情況下，我願把我畢生所得的經驗向大家報告，並以之與大家共勉，那就是「我應該繼續目前的工作，因為這工作少不了我。」

讓我規勸有野心的的年輕人一句話，假如他們能夠在工作崗位上把手邊的工作做得很好，使自己成為工作中不可少的一分子，那麼他們毋需自己去尋求高就，因為那時候重要的職位自會不求自來的。自從我當了我深愛的克羅尼市的市長之後，可以說比以前忙得多了，根本沒有去憧憬有一天我的同胞會選我當總理。可是那一天終於來了。

當整個世界看來過於龐大和複雜的時候，就須記得，世界性的偉大理想，說不定竟出之於你鄰居的家中呢，舉一個例子來說，我經常懷疑，那些建造德國許多名城的中世紀人，有幾個曾經預料到他們替德國建立了如此崇高的地位呢？他們只不過做著當時應做的工作，到了現在我們卻根據昔時自由和自治的傳統精神，塑造了今日自由共和的國家。那些都市計劃者所留下的榜樣，實在遠超過許多帝王和獨裁者。

因此歷史向我們昭示，我們那苦悶的時刻可以扭轉而為一個心的里程碑。如果我們能用點精神治理家庭，或是盡力做好自己的事業，或者使自己的鄉鎮為其他鄉鎮的模範，那麼我們所產生的影響會像旋渦那樣向四周擴展，我們每一個人的地位也會遠比自己想像得更為重要了。

艾德諾（前西德總理）

Confidence

“Lift where you stand.”  BY EDWARD EVERETT

Most of us, in moments of fatigue or discouragement, have taken a look at our daily task and wondered, “What does it really matter?” precisely at those moments we should tell ourselves what my lifetime has taught me is the one true answer: “I shall keep doing the job, for I matter a great deal.”

Let me counsel young people who are ambitious that they can best get ahead by making themselves important in the job at hand. Then they will not have to look for the next higher job-it will beoffered to them. In all humility, I was much too busy being mayor of my well loved city of Cologne to waste time dreaming that some daymy countrymen might ask me to be their Chancellor.Yet that day came.

When the world seems large and complex, we need to remember that great world ideals all begin in some home neighborhood. I doubt, for example, that the men of the Middle Ages who built Germany’s famed free cities guessed how high they were building. They simply did the jobat hand. Yet now we have their traditions of liberal self-government as a model for our free republic; those city planners set an example that has outlasted Kaisers and dictators.

So history shows us that our moments of discouragement can become the moments for our new starts. When we put inspiration into raising our family, or do the shop work better than required,or make our town a model for others, then our influence spreads in widening circles. We are each more important than we think.

KONRAD ADENAUER (FEDERAL GERMAN CHANCELLOR)

Mayor:市長

Chancellor:總理大法官

Doubt:懷疑