青春不是年华，而是心境；青春不是桃面、丹唇、柔膝，而是深沉的意志，恢宏的想象，炽热的感情；青春是生命的源泉清澈常新。
青春气贯长虹，勇锐盖过怯懦，进取压倒苟安。如此锐气，弱冠后生有之，耳顺之年，则亦多见。年岁有加，并非垂老；理想丢弃，方堕暮年。
岁月悠悠，衰微只及肌肤；热忱抛却，颓唐必至灵魂。忧烦、惶恐、丧失自信，定使心灵扭曲，意气如灰。
无论年届古稀，抑或二八芳龄，心中皆有生命之欢乐，奇迹之诱惑，孩童般天真久盛不衰。人人心中皆深植一片追求，只要你从天上和人间追求美好、希望、欢乐、勇气和力量，你就青春永驻，风华长存。
一旦追求消失，锐气如同冰雪覆盖，玩世不恭、悲观颓废油然而生，即使年方二十，实已老矣。然而，坚持追求，乐观人生，你就有望在耄耋之年告别尘寰时依然年青。
【注】骆家辉当选为美国华盛顿州州长后，收到全球各地华人的贺信。有位老人送了他一个条幅，抄录的是美国教育家Samuel Ullman的《YOUTH》(青春)之中译文，文采甚美，译者不详。我从Internet找到英文原文，对照并对译文再作修改，在此一并附上，与您一道分享和欣赏。 —— 李统铨, 2003年10月
【英文原文】
YOUTH
Samuel Ullman
(1840-1924)
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the refreshness of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a body of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.