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Bertrand Russell
Resignation is of two sorts, one rooted in despair, the other in unconquerable hope. The man who has suffered such fundamental defeat that he has given up hope of serious achievement may learn the resignation of despair, and if he does, he will abandon all serious activity. He may camouflage his despair by religious phrases, or by the doctrine that contemplation is the true end of man, but whatever disguise he may adopt to conceal his inward defeat, he will remain essentially useless and fundamentally unhappy. The man whose resignation is based on unconquerable hope acts in quite a different way. Hope which is to be unconquerable must be large and impersonal. Whatever my personal activities, I may be defeated by death, or by certain kinds of diseases; I may be overcome by my enemies; I may find that I have embarked upon an unwise course which cannot lead to success. In a thousand ways the failure of purely personal hopes may be unavoidable, but if personal aims have been part of larger hopes for humanity, there is not the same utter defeat when failure comes.
难词释义
resignation n. 辞职；屈从；听任
unconquerable adj. 不可战胜的；坚不可摧的；难以改变的
camouflage v. 伪装；掩饰
contemplation n. 深思；沉思
embark v. 着手；开始做
embark on/upon sth. 从事，着手，开始（新的或艰难的事情）
伯特兰·罗素
放弃有两种，一种源于绝望，一种源于不可征服的希望。一个人遭到重创，以致对重大的成就不抱希望时，也许会走向绝望的放弃，果真如此，他将中止一切重要的活动；他也许会用宗教上的词句，或者用沉思默想才是人类真正的目标的说法来掩饰他的绝望。但是无论他使用何种托辞来遮掩内心的失败，他本质上将是一个无用和不快乐的人。把放弃建立在不可征服的希望之上的人，行动则截然不同。不可征服的希望必定是巨大而非个人性质的。无论个人的活动如何，我可能被死亡或某种疾病击败，我可能被敌人打倒，我可能发现自己走上了一条不能成功的蠢路，在成千上万的形式中，纯属个人的希望的破灭也许不可避免，但若个人的目标已成为人类大希望中的一部分，那么当失败到来时，就不会被彻底击倒了。