One day, Socrates, a famous ancient Greek philosopher, said to his students, "From today on, I want you to do one thing, shake hands 300 times a day to exercise your will." The whole class burst into laughter and cut their hands. This is the simplest thing. Who can't do it?
The next day, Socrates asked how many people had 300 knives, and 100% of the students raised their hands excitedly. A month passed, and when Socrates asked questions for the second time, 80% of the students raised their hands, indicating that they persisted. Two months and three months ... one year passed, Socrates mentioned the cutting again, and the whole class was silent. Everyone looked at each other and felt ashamed. Only one person raised his hand, and the teacher saw it and nodded to him.
The student who raised his hand was Plato, and it was with this perseverance that he became another philosopher in ancient Greece.
2. The Wright brothers' flying dream
More than a hundred years ago, a poor shepherd took two young sons to herd sheep for others to make a living. One day, a flock of geese buzzed over their heads and soon disappeared in the distance. The shepherd's youngest son asked his father, "Where did the goose go?" The shepherd said, "They are going to a warm place, where they will settle down and spend the cold winter." The eldest son blinked and said enviously, "If only I could fly like a wild goose." The youngest son also said, "I wish I were a flying goose!" " The shepherd was silent for a while, and then said to his two sons, "You can fly if you want."
The two sons tried, but neither could fly. They looked at their father suspiciously. The shepherd said, "Let me fly to you." So he opened his arms, but he couldn't fly. However, the shepherd said firmly, "I can't fly because I am old." You are still young. As long as you keep working hard, you will fly and go where you want to go in the future. "
The two sons firmly remember their father's words and have been working hard. When they grow up, when their brother is 36 and their brother is 32, they can really fly, because they invented the plane. These two men are the Wright brothers in America.
3. Sunjingtou Cantilever Beam
Sun Jing was a native of Xindu (now jizhou city) in Han Dynasty. He is young, studious, knowledgeable, has a strong memory and likes reading. He often stays up reading and studies at night. Neighbors call him "Mr. Close the Door".
While studying, Sun Jing always takes notes. He often stays up until after midnight. After a long time, he sometimes falls asleep. I regretted it when I woke up. One day, he looked up and thought hard, his eyes stayed on the beams, and suddenly his eyes shone. Then I found a rope. One end of the rope is tied to the beam and the lower end is tied to my hair. In this way, whenever he is tired and sleepy and wants to doze off, as long as he lowers his head, the rope will yank his hair, and when it hurts, he will wake up to drive away sleepiness. Since then, he has studied hard in this way every night.
After studying hard year after year, Sun Jing read many poems and became a learned scholar. At that time, he was quite famous in the north of Jianghuai, and students often traveled thousands of miles to him to study and discuss knowledge.
4. Wang Xianzhi 18 vats
Wang Xianzhi began to learn calligraphy when he was seven or eight years old, and studied under his father. On one occasion, when Wang Xizhi saw that Xian Zhi was practicing calligraphy attentively, he quietly walked behind him and suddenly reached out to draw the brush in Wang Xianzhi's hand. Xianzhi held the pen tightly and was not pulled out. Wang Xizhi praised him: "This son is going to be famous again."
When he was a teenager, he thought his handwriting was very good. One day, he went to ask his father, "Is it good enough to practice my handwriting for another three years?" Wang Xizhi just laughed and didn't answer. His mother shook her head and said, "It's far away!" He offered it and asked, "What about five years?" Mom's head is still shaking. Xian asked anxiously, "How many years will it take to practice good handwriting?" He asked again, "Dad, everyone says your handwriting is good. What's the secret? " Wang Xizhi looked at his son and felt that this kind of calligraphy could not enter the human eye without solid basic skills, so he went to the window and pointed to a row of vats in the yard and said, "You, after writing those eighteen vats of water, you must have a skeleton to stand firm!" Wang Xianzhi was unconvinced and secretly determined to show some skills to her parents.
So he practiced basic strokes every day according to his father's requirements and worked hard for five years. One day, he showed his father his "painstaking efforts". Wang Xizhi made no sound. After reading it, he saw that the word "big" was tight and loose, so he picked up a pen, added a little below it and became the word "too", and then returned all the manuscripts to him. Xiaoxian felt a little bitter and showed all his calligraphy to his mother. The mother pondered it carefully and said with a sigh, "My son has written for thousands of days, and it seems that only one thing is semantic." Look carefully, what a fool! It turns out that this point pointed by my mother was added by Wang Xizhi under the big characters! I am ashamed and feel that my writing skills are far from perfect, so I put myself into my study and study hard every day. Clever Wang Xianzhi is deeply aware that there is no shortcut to writing, only the word "diligence".
I don't know how many days and nights have passed, and his calligraphy has made great progress. Later, he finally became a world-famous calligrapher, and like his father, he was called the "Two Kings".
5. Gong Yu moved mountains.
Taihang Mountain and Wuwangshan Mountain, 700 miles away in Fiona Fang, are seven or eight thousand feet above sea level. They were originally in the south of Jizhou, north of the Yellow River.
There is a man named Gong Yu at the foot of the North Mountain. He is almost 90 years old and lives directly opposite the mountain. He suffers from the traffic jam in the northern part of the mountain area, so he has to make a detour when he comes out or goes in. He called the whole family to discuss and said, "I'll try my best to level the steep mountain with you, so that the road will go all the way to the south of Yuzhou and reach the south bank of Hanshui River, okay?" Everyone agreed. His wife questioned him and said, "With your strength, even Quiff Mountain can't be leveled. What can you do with Taihang and Wu Wang? Besides, where do you put the excavated soil and stones? " They said, "Throw it on the edge of Bohai Sea, to the north of Tibetan soil." So Gong Yu led three children and grandchildren who could carry the burden up the mountain, chiseled stones and dug dirt, and transported them to the Bohai Sea with a dustpan. Neighbor Shi Jing's widow has an orphan, only seven or eight years old, skipping to help him. Winter and summer change seasons, and you can go back and forth once.
The wise man on the bend laughed at the foolish old man and stopped him from doing so, saying, "You are so stupid! With your remaining years and strength, you can't even move a grass on the mountain. What can you do with mud and stones? " Gong Yu of Beishan sighed and said, "Your heart is so stubborn that you can't begin to understand, even orphans and widows can't compare with you. Even if I die, I still have a son; Son gives birth to grandson, grandson gives birth to son; A son has a son and a son has a grandson; Children and grandchildren are endless, but mountains do not increase. Are you afraid of digging rough? " There is nothing to answer about knowing beans in a meandering river.