The great and good do not die even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens. Hence we ever remain under the influence of the great men of old. The imperial intellects of the world are as much alive now as they were ages ago.
读其书，如同读其人；同样，观其朋友，也如同观其人。书如同人，皆可成为伴侣。无论是以书为伴或以人为友，我们都应慎重选择，与佳者为伴。
好书犹如知己。不管过去、现在，还是将来，它都始终如一。它是最有耐心、最令人愉悦的伴侣。困难之际，它也不离不弃。它总是以善意接纳我们，在我们年轻时，好书能陶冶性情，增长知识；我们年老时，它又会给我们以慰藉。
好书可以使人们结为朋友，就像两个人会因为敬慕同一个人而成为朋友一样。古谚说“爱屋及乌”，但是，“爱我及书”这句话有更深的哲理。书是更为牢固和真实的情感纽带。假如拥有共同喜爱的作家，人们可以借此沟通思想感情。他们可以由此和作者产生共鸣。
黑兹利特曾?说过，“书潜移默化人们的内心，诗歌熏陶人们的气质品性。少小所习，老大不忘，恍如身历其事。书籍价廉物美，不啻我们呼吸的空气。”
好书犹如珍藏人一生思想精华的容器。人生的境界，主要就在于他思想的境界。所以，好书蕴藏着优美的语言、深邃的思想，倘若能铭记于心，就将成为我们忠实的伴侣和永恒的慰藉。菲利普·西德尼爵士说得好：“以高尚思想为伴的人永不孤独。”
当我们面临诱惑的时候，美好而纯真的思想就像仁慈的天使，保卫我们的灵魂，使她依旧纯洁。美好纯真的思想还珍藏着行动的胚芽，因为，金玉良言总能激发善行。
书是永恒不朽的，它是迄今为止人类不懈奋斗的珍宝。寺庙会坍塌，神像会朽烂，而书?久长存。在伟大的思想面前，时间显得微不足道。多少年前曾?感动作者的思想，今天依然清新如故。书记载了他们的言论和思想，现在看来依旧生动。时间唯一的作用是淘ì垃圾作品，只有真正的作品才能?受时间的检验而?久长存。
书引导我们迈入最优秀的领域，与历代伟人为伍，使我们如闻其声，如观其行，如见其人，如与他们朝夕相处，同欢喜、共伤悲。我们继承他们的感受，好似觉得在他们所描绘的舞台上跟他们同台献艺。
伟大杰出的人物在这世间不会消逝，书记载着他们的思想，然后传播开来。书是人们至今仍在聆听的思想回声，永远充满活力。因此，我们永远都在受着历代伟人的影响。多少年前的盖世英才，如同在他所生活的时代，今天依然显示着强大的生命力。
大学的理念（Ⅰ）
The Idea of a University(Ⅰ)
[英国]约翰·亨利·纽曼/John Henry Newman
约翰·亨利·纽曼（1801—1890），生于一个加尔文教派家庭，就读于牛津大学，1824年任神职，为英国基督教圣公会内部牛津运动的领袖，后皈依天主教，1846年成为红衣主教。1854年在都柏林成立了天主教大学，并任该校校长。为促成该校成立，他发表了一系列精彩演说。
I protest to you, gentlemen, that if I had to choose between a so-called university which dispensed with residence and tutorial superintendence, and gave its degrees to any person who passed an examination in a wide range of subjects, and a university which had no professors or examinations at all, but merely brought a number of young men together for three or four years, and then sent them away as the University of Oxford is said to have done some sixty years since, if I were asked which of these two methods was the better discipline of the intellect — I do not say which is morally the better, for it is plain that compulsory study must be a good and idleness an intolerable mischief — but if I must determine which of the two courses was the more successful in training, molding, enlarging the mind, which sent out men the more fitted for their secular duties, which produced better public men, men of the world, men whose names would descend to posterity, I have no hesitation in giving the preference to that university which did nothing, over that which exacted of its members an acquaintance with every science under the sun...
When a multitude of young persons, keen, openhearted, sympathetic, and observant, as young persons are, come together and freely mix with each other, they are sure to learn one from another, even if there be no one to teach them; the conversation of all is a series of lectures to each, and they gain for themselves new ideas and views, fresh matter of thought, and distinct principles for judging and acting, day by day. An infant has to learn the meaning of the information which its senses convey to it, and this seems to be its employment. It fancies all that the eye presents to it to be close to it, till it actually learns the contrary, and thus by practice does it ascertain the relations and uses of those first elements of knowledge which are necessary for its animal existence. A parallel teaching is necessary for our social being, and it is secured by a large school or a college, and this effect may be fairly called in its own department an enlargement of mind... Here then is a real teaching whatever be its standards and principles, true or false; and it at least tends towards cultivation of the intellect; it at least recognizes that knowledge is something more than a sort of passive reception of scraps and details; it is a something, and it does a something, which never will issue from the most strenuous efforts of a set of teachers, with no mutual sympathies and no intercommunion, of a set of examiners with no opinions which they dare profess, and with no common principles, who are teaching or questioning a set of youths who do not know them, and do not know each other, on a large number of subjects, different in kind, and connected by no wide philosophy, three times a week, or three times a year or once in three years, in chill lecture-rooms or on a pompous anniversary.
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How much more profitable for the independent mind, after the mere rudiments of education, to range through a library at random, taking down books as they meet him, and pursuing the trains of thought which his mother wit suggests! How much healthier to wander into the fields, and there with the exiled prince to find "tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks!"...
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先生们，如果我必须在两种大学中选择—— 一种是所谓的大学，它不提供住宿和学习指导，每个学生只要通过一场包括各方面知识的综合考试，就可以获得学位；另一种学校根本就没有教授和考试，只是让一群年轻人共同生活三四年，然后把他们送走，据说牛津大学已?这样做了60年。如果要我说出哪种方法更利于智力的培养，那么，我要向你们声明：如果指的是哪种方法能更成功地训练、塑造和拓宽一个人的思维，哪种方法更能培养出适合担当世俗责任的人员、好的公职人员、世事通达的人以及流芳百世的人，那么我会毫不犹豫地选择那种看来无所作为的大学，它好过那种要求学生通晓世上所有学科的大学。我这样选择，并不是指从道德方面考虑二者的优劣，因为很显然，强制性的学习必定有益，而懒散的习惯必有大害??
当一大群具有年轻人特有的敏锐、直率、同情、观察细微等品质的青年来到一起，自由地相互交往，即使没人教导他们，他们也必定能够彼此学习；他们的谈话对个人来讲，就是一系列的讲课。一天天地，他们从中学习到新的思想和观点、新的思维方式，以及判断和行为准则。婴儿必须弄明白他感觉到的信息，这似乎是他的本能。他以为眼睛所见到的东西都离自己很近，直到他真正明白其中是有对比的。这样，他就通过实践懂得了生存所必需的基本知识。我们社会的生存也需要类似的教育，这些教育就由大学校或者大学提供。它的作用在自己的范围内可以称为拓宽思维??不管这种教育的标准和?则是什么，也不管它是对是错，这都是一种真正的教育；最起码它有益于智力的开拓；最起码它认识到知识并不只是一种被动接受的片段和细节；它是有意义的事情，而且能够产生一些有意义的影响。那些相互没有交流和情感的老师产生不了这种影响，那些不敢于发表意见、没有共同?则的考官也产生不了这种影响，因为他们所教或所考的年轻人互不相识，也不认识他们。他们只是每周三次或每年三次或三年一次地在冰冷的教室里或大型的纪念日中，向学生们讲授或测试一大堆种类繁多且互不相干的学科。
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接受基本教育后，愿意独立思考的人在图书馆信步流连，随手取阅一些自己真心愿意深入学习的书籍，这该是多么有益的一件事啊！在?野上徜徉，与被流放的王子一起欣赏“树儿的低语，奔流的溪水中的美文”，又该是一种多么健康的学习啊！??
大学的理念（Ⅱ）