As a world-renowned institution, Harvard University has trained many celebrities, including 33 Nobel Prize winners, 7 U.S. presidents, and professional elites from all walks of life. What exactly makes Harvard such a cradle of elites? What kind of spirit and philosophy have Harvard students accepted? These questions attract thousands of people to find out the answers.

The 20 precepts on the wall of Harvard Library seem to have given the answer. A few short words can trigger deep thoughts and inspire people.

Twenty mottos from the Harvard Library:

1. If you take a nap now, you will dream; if you study now, you will realize your dream.

2. My wasted today is exactly the tomorrow that those who died yesterday prayed for.

3. The time when you think it is too late is precisely the earliest time.

4. Don’t put off today’s things until tomorrow.

5. The pain of learning is temporary, and the pain of not learning is lifelong.

6. Learning this is not a lack of time, but a lack of effort.

7. Happiness may not be ranked, but success must be ranked.

8. Learning is not everything in life. But since you can't conquer even one part of life - learning, what else can you do?

9. Please enjoy the unavoidable pain.

10. Only by working earlier and harder than others can you taste success.

11. No one can succeed casually, it comes from thorough self-management and perseverance.

12. Time is passing.

13. The drool now will become the tears tomorrow.

14. Learn like a dog and play like a gentleman.

15. If you don’t walk today, you will run tomorrow.

16. Those who invest in the future are those who are loyal to reality.

17. Educational level represents income.

18. Once one day is over, it will never come again.

19. Even now, the opponent keeps turning the pages.

20. Without hardship, there is nothing gained.

If you take a nap now, you will dream; if you study now, you will realize your dream

Harvard teachers often give this warning to students: If you want to be successful in any situation at any time after entering the society, If you can do everything well and get the evaluation you deserve, then you will have no time to bask in the sun during your studies at Harvard. A widely circulated motto at Harvard is "After harvesting and sowing, study, study, and study again."

People's time and energy are limited, so we must use our time to study quickly. Instead of spending all your spare time napping.

Some people will say: "I just take a nap in my spare time. Why do I make myself so nervous in my spare time?" Einstein once said: "The difference between people lies in their spare time." A friend of mine who teaches at Harvard also told me that as long as you know how a young man spends his spare time, you can predict his future.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there was such a difficult problem in the mathematics community, that is, whether the result of subtracting 1 from the 76th power of 2 is the prime number that people have guessed. Many scientists are working hard to overcome this mathematical difficulty, but the results are not as expected. In 1903, at the Mathematical Society in New York, a scientist named Cole successfully proved this difficult problem through a convincing computational argument.

People were surprised and applauded and asked Cole: "How long did it take you to demonstrate this topic?" Cole replied: "All Sundays in 3 years."

Similarly, Canadian medical educator Osler is also a model of using his spare time to make achievements. Oursler's greatest contribution to mankind was his successful study of the third type of blood cell. In order to squeeze out time to read from his busy work, he stipulated that he must read for 15 minutes before going to bed.

No matter how late you work, stick to this habit. He persisted in this habit for half a century, read more than 1,000 books, and achieved remarkable results.

My wasted today is exactly the tomorrow that those who died yesterday prayed for

Founder of the world-famous Johns Hopkins College and Chair Professor of Oxford University School of Medicine , William was knighted by the King of England. When Osler was young, he was also confused about his future. Once, he saw a sentence while reading, which inspired him a lot. This sentence is "The most important thing is not to look at the fuzzy things in the distance, but to do the things that are clear at hand."

In this regard, Harvard reminds students that "the day I wasted today is the day I died yesterday." The tomorrow that I pray for." No matter how beautiful tomorrow is, it is better to seize today and do more practical things.

Benjamin, an inventor and scientist who received an honorary degree from Harvard University. Franklin once received a call from a young man asking for advice and made an appointment with him at a time and place to meet. When the young man arrived as promised, Benjamin's door was wide open, but the house in front of him was in a mess. The young man was very surprised.

Before he could speak, Benjamin greeted: "Look, my room is too untidy. Please wait outside the door for a minute while I clean it up. You can come in again." Then Benjamin He closed the door gently.

In less than a minute, Benjamin opened the door again and enthusiastically let the young man into the living room. At this time, another scene appeared in front of the young man's eyes - everything in the room had become orderly, and there were two glasses of poured red wine, with a faint aroma waving in the microwave.

The young man was surprised. Before he could tell Benjamin all the difficult questions about life and career, Benjamin said very politely: "Cheers! You can go."

The young man holding the wine glass was stunned for a moment, and said with a hint of embarrassment and regret: "I haven't asked you for advice yet..."

"Aren't these... not enough?" Benjamin smiled while scanning his room and said, "It's been another minute since you came in."

"One minute..." the young man said thoughtfully, "I understand, you let me Understand the profound truth that one minute can do a lot and change a lot of things."

If you cherish every minute and every second in front of you, you will cherish the day you have. This sentence from Harvard actually reveals a philosophy of life, which is to seize time with a cherished attitude and start from today.

The time when you feel it is too late is precisely the earliest time

Amman used to be an engineer for the New York Port Authority and retired as required after working for many years. At first, he was very disappointed. But he soon became happy because he had a great idea. He wanted to start his own engineering company and open office buildings to every corner of the world.

Amman began to implement its plan step by step, designing buildings all over the world. In the more than thirty years after his retirement, he practiced bold and novel designs that he had no chance to try at work, and constantly created one classic after another that attracted the world's attention: Addis Ababa Airport, the capital of Ethiopia. , Washington Dulles Airport, Iran's highway system, the downtown building complex of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania... These works are used as examples commonly used in university architecture and engineering department textbooks, and are also witnesses of Amman's great dream. At the age of 86, he completed his last work - the longest suspended highway bridge in the world at the time - the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in New York.

Many things in life are like this. If you are willing to start, recognize your goals, and make up your mind to do something, it is never too late.

If you don’t walk today, you have to run tomorrow

At Harvard, professors will often remind students to manage their time well and cite the following examples:

Today Graft, the president of DuPont, the world's largest chemical company.

Greenwater spends an hour every day studying hummingbirds and using special equipment to take photos of them. Authorities have called his book on hummingbirds an outstanding work in the natural history series.

Sugar. Black had no higher education before entering the United States Congress. He squeezed out an hour from his busy schedule to go to the Library of Congress to read a lot of books, including books on politics, history, philosophy, poetry, etc., for several years, even during the busiest days of parliamentary work. . He later became a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

A Greek elevator maintenance worker named Nikolai was very interested in modern science. He always spent an hour after get off work and before dinner every day studying books on nuclear physics. As knowledge accumulated, an idea popped into his mind. In 1948, he proposed a plan to build a new type of particle accelerator. This accelerator was cheaper and more powerful than other types of accelerators at the time. He submitted the plan to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission for testing, and after further improvements, this accelerator saved the United States $70 million. Nikolai received a reward of $10,000 and was hired to work in the Radiation Laboratory of the University of California.

On the road of life, you stand still, but some people are rushing forward. Maybe when you were standing, he was still chasing after you, but when you looked back, you could no longer see his figure, because he had already run in front of you and now he needs you to come. Chased him. Therefore, you cannot stop, you must keep moving forward and surpassing.

Learn like a dog, play like a gentleman

We say that we should cherish time and work hard to realize our ideals, but one thing we should pay attention to is that we should not just work hard but also work hard. Have moderate rest and relaxation. In this regard, Harvard has a very appropriate saying, which is "learn like a dog and play like a gentleman." Although the words are slightly vulgar, the truth revealed is profound.

At Harvard, although the study intensity is very intense and students are under great pressure to study, they do not encourage students to spend all their time studying. They believe that learning should be done as hard as possible, and playing should not be neglected. Harvard students also say that Harvard’s extracurricular life is better than formal study. Harvard also realizes that moderate extracurricular activities will not deviate from the educational mission, but will also support the educational mission. Therefore, they proposed to "play like gentlemen."

At Harvard, in addition to studying intensely, students will also participate in a variety of artistic activities organized by the school, such as concerts, drama performances, dance performances and various art exhibitions. In addition, Harvard also holds Organize art festivals to activate students' spare time life. These activities full of strong artistic atmosphere not only allow students to receive art education and influence, but also improve students' artistic accomplishment and aesthetic ability.

Harvard’s philosophy requires you to be able to completely forget about intense study and work for a while, engage in play as much as you engage in work, and relax as much as you want. Indeed, when you relax with all your heart, the recovery of physical strength and energy you get will add endless motivation to your next stage of struggle. Therefore, on the way forward, you must not only work hard, but also learn to relax.

The drool you shed now will become the tears tomorrow

Success and comfort are incompatible. If you choose one, you will definitely give up the other outcome. As Harvard reminds us: the drool now will become the tears tomorrow. If you don’t work hard today, you will definitely suffer tomorrow.

My neighbor Charles once spent 4 years at Harvard. He now works for a software company in New York, doing his best administrative work and is a scholar. Not long ago, his company was merged by a French company. On the day the merger contract was signed, the company’s new president announced: “We will not lay off employees at will, but if your French is too poor to communicate with other employees, then we will have to hire people no matter how high they are. You leave. We will have a French exam this weekend, and only those who pass the exam can continue to work here." After the meeting, almost everyone flocked to the library, and they realized this. It’s time to learn French as soon as possible.

Only Charles went home directly as usual, and his colleagues thought that he was ready to give up his job. After all, his Harvard study background and work experience in company management would help him find another good job easily.

However, what everyone didn’t expect was that after the test results came out, this person who had no hope in everyone’s eyes got the highest score. It turned out that after Charles came to this company after graduation, he found that there were many opportunities to deal with French people at work. Not knowing French would greatly limit his work, so he started to learn French by himself very early. . He used all the time available to study every day, and finally learned something.

At Harvard, you never see students being lazy and killing time. When you think back to your dreams a few years later, I hope it will bring you an endless smile of relief instead of tears of regret for wasted time.

Those who invest in the future are those who are loyal to reality

As a world-renowned university, Harvard places great emphasis on having a long-term vision and investing in the future. To invest in the future, you must determine the future investment direction, which means setting life goals early. Without goals, there is no development, let alone success.

Harvard University once conducted such a follow-up survey, targeting a group of young people with similar conditions in terms of intelligence, education and environment. The survey results found that: 27% of people have no goals; 60% of people have vague goals; 10% of people have clear but relatively short-term goals; and the remaining 3% of people have clear and long-term goals.

In the years to come, they Traveling on their own journey of life. Twenty-five years later, Harvard conducted a follow-up survey on this group of students again. The result is this: 3 people have worked tirelessly in one direction for 25 years and almost all have become successful people from all walks of life, including many industry leaders and social elites; 10 people, their short-term The goal is constantly achieved and they become professionals in various fields, and most of them live in the middle and upper classes of society; those in their 60s live and work stably, but have no special achievements, and almost all live in the middle and lower classes of society; the rest People aged 27 have no goals in life, live a very unsatisfactory life, and often complain about others, society, and, of course, themselves.

In fact, the only difference between them is: 25 years ago, some of them already knew what they wanted to do most, while others were not clear or not very clear. This survey vividly illustrates the importance of clarifying life goals for success in life.