【每天读一点英文：生而为赢Born to Win英文经典短文】gnuhpc注释版:If I Rest, I Rust

The significant inscription found on an old key---“If I rest, I rust”---would be an excellent motto for those who are afflicted（烦恼） with the slightest bit of idleness. Even the most industrious person might adopt it with advantage to serve as a reminder that, if one allows his faculties to rest, like the iron in the unused key, they will soon show signs of rust and, ultimately, cannot do the work required of them.

Those who would attain the heights reached and kept by great men must keep their faculties polished by constant use, so that they may unlock the doors of knowledge, the gate that guard the entrances to the professions, to science, art, literature, agriculture---every department of human endeavor（[en·deav·or || ɪn'devə ] n.  努力; 尽力）.

Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasury of achievement. If Hugh Miller, after toiling(

[tɔɪl ] n.  辛苦, 劳累; 难事; 苦工#罗网, 圈套v.  苦干; 费力地做; 跋涉) all day in a quarry(quar·ry || 'kwɑrɪ ,'kwɔ- /'kwɒ- ] n.   石场), had devoted his evenings to rest and recreation, he would never have become a famous geologist. The celebrated mathematician, Edmund Stone, would never have published a mathematical dictionary, never have found the key to science of mathematics, if he had given his spare moments to idleness, had the little Scotch lad, Ferguson, allowed the busy brain to go to sleep while he tended sheep on the hillside instead of calculating the position of the stars by a string of beads, he would never have become a famous astronomer.

Labor vanquishes( [van·quish || 'væŋkwɪʃ ] v.  打败, 克服, 征服) all---not inconstant, spasmodic([spas·mod·ic || spæz'mɑdɪk /-'mɒd- ] adj.   间歇性的), or ill-directed labor; but faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose. Just as truly as eternal vigilance( ['vig·i·lance || 'vɪdʒɪləns ] n.  警戒) is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry(此处意为勤勉) the price of noble and enduring success.