雙語智慧書·凡事都要勇敢

182．凡事都要勇敢
　　凡事都要勇敢，這是審慎處世的一個要點(diǎn)。你必須節(jié)制自己對他人的評價，以免高估他們，讓自己畏懼。想象力不可無限擴(kuò)大。很多人看似偉大，若與其相交，只會增加你的失望，而非景仰。無人能超越人性的局限，盡管它很小--每個人都有弱點(diǎn)，不是存在于大腦，就是存在于內(nèi)心。尊貴的地位使人表面威嚴(yán)，但這權(quán)威很少與人自身的能力相配--命運(yùn)無常，它總是讓地位高貴的人擁有低劣的素質(zhì)，以平衡其位置的高度。想象總是蹦出太快，給事物染上比本身更絢麗的色彩--想象力不是根據(jù)事物的本質(zhì)來考慮問題的，是根據(jù)人的期望。歷練的警覺可立即矯正這一點(diǎn)。智者不應(yīng)懦弱退避，愚人不應(yīng)粗魯莽撞。如果說自信能為無知者助威，那它對智勇雙全者的幫助又何其大矣！



182．A grain of boldness in everything
　A grain of boldness in everything. It is an important piece of prudence. You must moderate your opinion of others so that you may not think so high of them as to fear them. The imagination should never yield to the heart. Many appear great till you know them personally, and then dealing with them does more to disillusionize than to raise esteem. No one oversteps the narrow bounds of humanity: all have their weaknesses either in heart or head. Dignity gives apparent authority, which is rarely accompanied by personal power, for Fortune often redresses the height of office by the inferiority of the holder. The imagination always jumps too soon, and paints things in brighter colours than the real: it thinks things not as they are but as it wishes them to be. Attentive experience disillusionized in the past soon corrects all that. Yet if wisdom should not be timorous, neither should folly be rash. And if self-reliance helps the ignorant, how much more the brave and wise?