奥里森·马登/Orison Marden
The lack of opportunity is ever the excuse of a weak, vacillating mind. Opportunities!Every life is full of them.
Every lesson in school or college is an opportunity. Every examination is a chance in life. Every business transaction is an opportunity—an opportunity to be polite, an opportunity to be manly, an opportunity to be honest, an opportunity to make friends. Every proof of confdence in you is a great opportunity.
Every responsibility thrust upon your strength and your honor is priceless. Existence is the privilege of effort, and when that privilege is met like a man, opportunities to succeed along the line of your aptitude will come faster than you can use them.
Young men and women, why do you stand here all the day idle?Was the land all occupied before you were born?Has the earth ceased to yield its increase?Are the seats all taken?The positions allflled?The chances all gone?Are the resources of your country fully developed?Are the secrets of nature all mastered?Is there no way in which you can utilize these passing moments to improve yourself or beneft another?
Don't wait for your opportunity. Make it, make it as Napoleon made his in a hundred“impossible”situations. Make it, as all leaders of men, in war and in peace, have made their chances of success. Make it, as every man must, who would accomplish anything worth the effort, Golden opportunities are nothing to laziness, but industry makes the commonest chances golden.
缺乏机会，向来都是胆小懦弱和优柔寡断者的借口。机会！生活中无处不在。
无论中学还是大学里的每堂课，都是一个机会；考试是生活给予的机会；每一次的事务处理是机会。生活给予人们礼貌待人，诚实宽厚的机会，更是广交朋友的大好机会；生活对个人自信度的考验也是个极好的机会。
个人能力和诚信所负担的每一份责任都是无价的。只有奋斗不息，才有生存的空间；只有不断追求，提升能力，成功的机会才会纷至沓来。