奧裏森·馬登/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.
缺乏機會，向來都是膽小懦弱和優柔寡斷者的借口。機會！生活中無處不在。
無論中學還是大學裏的每堂課，都是一個機會；考試是生活給予的機會；每一次的事務處理是機會。生活給予人們禮貌待人，誠實寬厚的機會，更是廣交朋友的大好機會；生活對個人自信度的考驗也是個極好的機會。
個人能力和誠信所負擔的每一份責任都是無價的。隻有奮鬥不息，才有生存的空間；隻有不斷追求，提升能力，成功的機會才會紛至遝來。