Short stories of famous people making friends

Joule's quest for knowledge - good learning

Joule, a famous British scientist, loved physics since he was a child, and he often did some experiments on electricity, heat and so on by himself.

One year on vacation, Joule and his brother traveled to the countryside together. Joule, who was smart and studious, didn't forget to do his physics experiments while he was playing.

He found a lame horse, led by his brother, he quietly hid in the back, with the Voda battery will be electric current to the horse, want to try an animal in the current stimulation after the reaction. The result was the reaction he wanted to see: the horse jumped wildly after receiving the shock, nearly kicking his brother.

Despite the danger, Joule's love of experimentation didn't dampen his spirits. He and Giggles paddled out again to the lake surrounded by mountains, where Joule wanted to try out how loud the echo was. They stuffed their muskets with gunpowder and pulled the triggers. A long stream of fire erupted from the muzzle of the gun with a bang, burning out Joule's eyebrows and nearly scaring his brother into the lake.

Then, the sky thick clouds, lightning and thunder, just want to go to the shore to hide from the rain Joule found that each time after the lightning for a long time before you can hear the rumble of the thunder, this is what happened?

Joule didn't bother to hide from the rain, pulled his brother up a hill, and used a pocket watch to carefully record the time between each flash of lightning and the thunder.

After the school year began, Joule almost couldn't wait to tell his teacher about all the experiments he had done and to ask him for advice.

The teacher smiled at Joule and patiently explained to him, "Light and sound do not travel at the same speed; light travels fast and sound travels slow, so people always want to see the lightning and then hear the thunder, but in fact the lightning and thunder happen at the same time."

Joule heard the realization. From then on, he became even more fascinated by learning about science. Through continuous study and careful observation and calculation, he finally discovered the law of conservation of heat and energy, and became an outstanding scientist.

The vanity of the powerful

Michelangelo, the famous Italian sculptor, once carved a stone statue in Florence, because the statue was huge and would be placed in a prominent position in the city, Michelangelo did his best from the conception and technique. After nearly two years of work, Michelangelo finally completed his work. When he saw the work, which was the result of all his efforts, he was proud of himself. At the preview of the work, Florence was filled with people in awe of his creation. Eventually, even the mayor of Florence came to visit, and many powerful people gathered around the statue whispering and waiting for the mayor's opinion. The mayor arrogantly glanced a few times toward the statue and asked, "Is the author here?" Michelangelo is invited to appear before the mayor. The mayor said, "Stone carver, I think the nose of this statue is a little low, which detracts from the artistic atmosphere of the whole statue." Hearing this, Michelangelo said, "Honorable Mayor, I will raise the nose of the stone statue as you have requested." After saying this, Michelangelo asked his assistant to take out the tools and carry the stone powder to work on the nose of the stone statue. Michelangelo smeared the stone powder on the nose of the stone statue. After wiping for a while, he came to the mayor and said, "Honorable mayor, I have raised the nose of the stone statue according to your request, do you think it's okay now?" The mayor looked at it and nodded and said, "Carver of stone, it is much better now, this is perfect art.

"After the mayor left, Michelangelo's assistant was puzzled and asked, "You just put three handfuls of stone powder on the nose of the stone statue, the nose of the stone statue was not raised at all?" Michelangelo said, "But the mayor thought it was taller.

"It is said that the statue still stands in the streets of Florence, and those who know where it came from know the proverb: "The vanity of the powerful is three handfuls of stone dust on the nose of a stone statue."

(From Zhiyin, Overseas Edition, Issue 4, by Quicksand)

A wonderful phrase for a successful job search

In 2003, when Forsberg, the father of chocolate, was allowed to land his company in the Chinese market, he sent out a job advertisement. The announcement was simple, and went something like this: Please answer what the following four celebrities are saying in the most succinct sentence possible.

1. On April 2, 1954, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich invited Albert Einstein to return to his alma mater to give a speech, in which Einstein said these words: "I was a medium student, and by the standards of the school I was not considered to be a good student, but I have since discovered that it is education that is capable of forgetting what one learns at school, and that what is left is education. "

2. June 2, 1984, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ding Zhaozhong returned to his alma mater Tsinghua University to give a speech, in accepting questions from his classmates, said; "As far as I know, in the Nobel Prize of more than 90 physicists, there has not been one in the school often take the first place; often take the bottom first to there are several."

3. On March 27, 1999, Bill. Gates was invited back to his alma mater, Harvard University, to participate in fund-raising activities, when a reporter asked him whether he would like to continue his studies to get a diploma from Harvard University, he smiled at the reporter did not answer.

4. On May 21, 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush returned to his alma mater, Yale University, to receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Because of his mediocre academic performance that year, when asked about his feelings now, he said, "To those graduates who achieved excellent results, I say 'good job', and to those who achieved less, I say 'you can go to be president '."

More than 400 outstanding Chinese college students applied for the job. on March 10, 2003, his branch opened in Beijing, and only one student was notified to come to their opening ceremony. The student's response was this: "There are high grades and low grades in school, but not outside of school, and outside of school always rearranges everything inside the school gates.

That's your oil field

Oil tycoon Paul Getty, once the richest man in the United States, didn't have a rich family when he was young, and only had a dry field with a poor harvest.

Later, while digging a water well in the field, some black, thick oil came out of the field. So the wells became oil wells, and the dry field became an oil field, and Paul Getty saw a way to get rich. He began hiring laborers to extract the oil.

Paul Getty ran his business with great dedication, and went to the oil fields to inspect them. But every time he did, he found people wasting raw materials and idlers wandering about. He brings the foremen in and asks them to eliminate the waste and remove the idlers. However, the next time he went, everything was still the same. Paul was puzzled. Why is it that I can see waste and idleness when I go there, but the foremen are here every day and turn a blind eye? Then a management scientist woke Paul up with a remark that said, "That's your oil field.

"Paul immediately summoned the foremen and announced to them, "From today the oil field is handed over to you to be responsible for its operation, and 25% of the benefits are at your disposal." From then on, when Paul toured the field again, he found that not only had waste disappeared and idleness been eliminated, but production had increased dramatically.

(From the Feb. 28 edition of the Yangcheng Evening News)

Napoleon shoots at soldier who fell into the water

Napoleon once rode through a forest and saw a soldier who couldn't swim fall into the water and was drifting into the depths, and the soldiers on the shore panicked because none of them could swim.

Napoleon asked, "Can he swim?" The reply, "Only a few strokes, not now.

"Napoleon casually took a pistol from the soldier and shouted at the man who had fallen into the water, "You swim back quickly, or I will shoot." With that he literally fired two shots into the water.

Hearing this, the man who had fallen into the water turned his head violently, rowed desperately, and actually leaned over quickly. Puzzled, he asked Napoleon, "Your Majesty, why did you shoot me when I was scared to death?" Napoleon laughed: "Fool, if I don't scare you a little, you will really drown, look at these few people who can save you? After such a scare, didn't you turn back and save yourself?"

(From Civilization Guide, Issue 4)

The Hippocratic Oath

Yan Chengzhang

In the fight against SARS, when the media reported on the deeds of outstanding medical workers, they talked about the "Hippocratic Oath". "

Hippocrates (Hippocrates) was an ancient Greek physician who lived from about 460 BC to 377 BC. The "Hippocratic Oath" was not written by Hippocrates in its entirety. Hippocrates has been recognized in the West as the "Father of Western Medicine" and his "Oath" has been used as a code of medical ethics. The Dictionary of Western Culture describes the "Oath" as follows: "...... I will do all in my power and judgment to observe the creed for the benefit of the sick, and to restrain all depraved and injurious conduct, and I shall not give harmful drugs to others, and I shall not give them to any other person. I shall not give harmful drugs to others, nor give instruction in them, nor shall I give them to anyone who asks for them. In particular, I will not perform abortions on women. In this spirit of purity and sanctity, I wish to carry out my duties for the rest of my life. I will not operate on anyone suffering from stones, but will leave that to the specialists. Wherever I meet a man or a woman, a nobleman or a slave girl, my only aim is to work for the happiness of the sick, and to keep myself free from all kinds of evils and abominations, especially from seduction. I am willing to keep secret all that I have seen and heard, whether in business or not, which I think ought to be kept secret. If I keep the above oath, I ask the gods and goddesses to make my life and medical skill glorious, and if I violate the oath, the gods and goddesses will **** me badly."

(From Yangcheng Evening News, June 9, 2003)

Mill

Running sand

There was an Emperor Wilhelm I in 19th-century Germany, who built a large, luxuriously furnished palace on the outskirts of the city of Potsdam. By chance, he found a mill not far from the palace that was an eyesore, blocking the view from the front. William I asked the Minister of the Interior to find out whose mill it was and pay the miller some money to tear it down. The Home Secretary found the miller and made his identity and request known to the miller. But the miller said, "That is property handed down from my ancestors, and I want to pass it on from generation to generation."

William I got angry and sent his palace guards to force the house down. As the house was being torn down, the miller said to the guards, "Of course the emperor is a powerful man, but there are still courts in Germany, and I will take this injustice to the courts." Soon afterward, the court ruled against the emperor and that he had to be "restored to the status quo ante". So William I had to have the demolished mill rebuilt.

Decades later, William I died, and so did the miller. The miller's son was ready to sell the mill to the reigning William II because of financial constraints, and he thought the royal family must have thought it was the best of both worlds. But Wilhelm II gave the miller's son 6,000 marks, and wrote a letter in his own handwriting, instructing him that the mill was a memorial to the independence of the judiciary and the impartiality of the courts in the German state, and the honor of your family, and asking that it be handed down from generation to generation.

In the city of Potsdam the old mill is still standing, and every year there are many sightseers. Especially some law graduates, who observe the mill as a mandatory procedure for their own practice.

(From the Morning Post, July 3, 2003)

Einstein's letter to mankind 5,000 years from now

Wen Shan

In 1938, U.S. President Roosevelt personally telephoned Albert Einstein to ask him to write a letter to tell people 5,000 years from now "about the thoughts and feelings of our time. ." Einstein wrote. The letter was placed in a strong container, buried deep beneath the New York World's Fair, and topped with a stone tablet stating that future generations would not be able to remove it until the year 6939. The letter reads:

Our age has produced many men of genius whose inventions could make our lives far more comfortable. We have long since crossed the oceans by mechanical power, and by the use of mechanical power we can free mankind at last from all kinds of hard and laborious manual labor. We have learned to fly, and we use electromagnetic waves to communicate easily from one corner of the globe to another.

But the production and distribution of goods is completely unorganized. Everyone lives in fear of losing their jobs and suffering miserable poverty. Moreover, people living in different countries kill each other from time to time. For these reasons, all people are forced to think of the future with fear and extreme pain.

I am sure that future generations will read this letter with a sense of pride and justified superiority.

(From ****Ming, No. 3, 2003)

The Road is Curved and the Heart is Straight

Li Min

There was a young monk in a temple who, every morning, had to fetch water, sprinkle and sweep, and, after doing his morning service, had to go to a market town far behind the temple to buy the daily necessities the temple needed for the day. In the evening he had to read the scriptures until late at night.

One day he realized that although other young monks were occasionally assigned to go down the mountain to shop, they went to the town in front of the mountain, where the road was flat and close. So the young monk asked the abbot, "Why is everyone else more comfortable than me? No one forces them to work and read the scriptures, while I have to work non-stop?" The abbot just smiled and said nothing.

The next day at noon, when the young monk came from the back of the mountain carrying a bag of millet, the abbot took him to the front gate of the temple. The sun was already in the west, and the figures of several young monks appeared on the mountain road in front of him, and the abbot asked the young monks, "I asked you to go to buy salt early in the morning, and the road is so close and flat, how come you came back so late?"

The few little monks said, "Abbot, we talked and laughed and looked at the scenery, and that's when we got to this time. It's been like this every day for ten years!"

The Abbot then asked the young monk standing beside him, "The marketplace behind the temple is so far away, and you're carrying such a heavy load, why did you come back even earlier?"

The little monk said, "Every day on the road I think of going early and returning early, because of the heavy things on my shoulders, I am more careful to go, so instead of walking steadily and quickly. After ten years, I have developed the habit that there is only the goal in my heart, not the road anymore!" The Abbot laughed at this and said, "When the road is smooth, the heart is instead not on the goal. Only by walking on a bumpy road can one's mind be sharpened!"

This young monk of the year was the later famous Venerable Xuanzang. On the way to the west to get the scriptures, although the hardships and dangers, his heart has always shone with the light of persistence.

(From Liaoning Youth, Issue 10, 2003)

Master's style

Wu Xiping wrote in China Youth Daily on July 6, 2003 that Gu Yanwu, an enlightened thinker in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, likened reading and writing a book to "casting money". He said: I have said that today's book as the ancients cast copper money, the ancients from the mine in the copper, while today's people rely on the purchase of old copper to do raw materials, the former cast a small number of money, but the quality of fine, and the latter is not only newly cast out of the quality of the copper shoddy, but also the ancients of the heirloom of the technology to the destruction. I more than a year, despite reading from morning to night, repeated research, only to consider the clear a few questions, the number of small, but also counted directly from the mine of copper it!

The article says, sadly, more than three hundred years ago, this analogy of scholars, but a word in today's reality. Nowadays, the academic world is the prevailing trend of impatience: quantity but not the quality of the crude production, not move is the emperor tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of words of the book, a year a book or even a few books, writing a book has become easier than writing a thesis; cobbled together works abound.

Compared with these later generations of scholars, the older generation of scholars to "dwarf" a lot. Philosophy master Wittgenstein only published one book in his life -- "The Theory of Logic and Philosophy", and less than 80 pages of thin, and then no more books. It was only after his death that others compiled his notes and lectures into a book. It was this "small book" that achieved the fame of the master's life. Master such a combination of humility and romance and courage in one of the sincerity is really admirable. I think this comes from his deep accumulation and in-depth thinking, from his good academic ethics and moral feelings, from his elegant temperament and appropriate self-knowledge. The style of the master should also be a yardstick in the academic world, guiding the direction of learning and marking the height of cultivation and morality.

Wisdom on the edge of the cliff

Xie Longyan

In the days of Tsarist Russia, a man who did not know how to swim lost his footing and fell into the river. No matter how much he shouted "help", the police on duty on the bank did nothing. The man was dying, and in his panic he suddenly shouted, "Down with the tsar!"

This was a big deal; in Russia at the time, insulting the tsar was punishable by imprisonment. Two policemen immediately jumped into the water, lifted the man who had fallen into the water to shore, and sent him to the police station. The drowning man was thus saved.

When a person is pushed to the brink of extinction for some reason, wisdom suddenly blossoms. This phenomenon has been called "wisdom at the edge of the cliff".

The famous British painter Sawhill was once invited by the Queen of England to paint a large mural in the palace. In order to paint this huge work, the painter built a three-story high scaffolding. The Queen led a group of ministers to watch, when Sohier was standing on the scaffolding to scrutinize his own work with great attention. As he watched, he stepped back, right up to the edge of the scaffolding, and the queen and her ministers, standing under the scaffolding, were stunned, but no one dared to make a sound: they knew that if anyone shouted out, Thornhill would be so frightened that he would probably fall to the ground and die.

Then, the assistant who stood beside Thorhild had a brilliant idea, he rushed to the frescoes, picked up a brush and scribbled on the frescoes. Seeing this, Sohail became furious and rushed forward to snatch the brush in the assistant's hand, "Are you crazy?" This way. His assistant saved one of his lives with forced inspiration.

(From Northern Law Journal, July 3, 2003)

Life is the process of extracting the essence

Carrie Fiorina, the female president of Hewlett-Packard, studied at Stanford University. Twenty-five years after graduating, she returned to her alma mater to speak. One of the most memorable courses I took at Stanford was a seminar on "the political philosophy of the three major sects of Christianity, Islam, and Catholicism in the Middle Ages," she says.

Every week we had to read a work on medieval philosophy, like Aquinas, Bacon, Abelard - all long works - we were averaging 1,000 pages a week. We had to read an average of 1,000 pages of the stuff. And every weekend, we had to distill and summarize the intellectual discourse of these philosophers into a distillation of only 2 pages.

The process was something like this, first reducing them to something like 20 pages, then 10, and finally to 2, and on one side of manuscript paper. That's more than summarizing, isn't it? It's literally reducing everything to its most primitive form, reverting to the most fundamental essence of things!

And the week immediately following, we were looking at the writings of another philosopher.

The philosophies and ideologies of these thinkers certainly impressed me, but it was the almost exacting process of extracting the essence, of "distilling" it to perfection, that I really learned. It's an incredible, almost stubborn skill. And I've benefited from it over and over again. It's a comprehensive exercise in extracting the essence of things and reducing them to what they are, and that course also taught me the meaning of life. Life is the process of extracting the essence.

(From Chinese College Students, Issue 7, 2003)

Mr. Sloan's Hobbies

Lindsay

Mr. Sloan was the president of General Motors, and was the first real professional manager in the history of the U.S.A. Prior to that time, the big businesses in the U.S.A. had always been "bosses" who managed their own businesses. " managing the business themselves.

Mr. Sloan was a hobbyist when he was young and had a wide range of friends and many close friends, but after he became president of General Motors, he isolated himself and did not get close to his fellow executives, treating them all with courtesy and keeping them at the same distance.

"No one likes to be alone, I also like to make friends, like to have a companion around me, but the company gives me a high salary, not let me come to make friends, my job is to assess how the company's people perform, so as to make the right personnel decisions, if I and I **** thing of the people who are friends, naturally, there will be a good and bad, it will affect me to make decisions. Therefore, I am not allowed to establish personal friendships in the workplace."

Not only that, but Mr. Sloan never talks about his hobbies or his family in public. In the book that introduced him, he insisted that editors not include a two-page essay on his family, childhood and early career. Mr. Sloan believes that a "professional" should not reveal his interests, beliefs or private life, which is his private business and not his "profession.

Thanks to Sloan's leadership, GM is full of all kinds of people. His 35 senior executives, in particular, have different styles and characteristics, and that's what makes GM so dynamic.

Writing this, I not only recalled a recent quote from the newspaper: "I'm not afraid of the system and regulations, but I'm most afraid of the leading cadres who don't have hobbies." This sentence comes from the mouth of Lai Changxing, the main criminal in the Xiamen Yuanhua case, which involves the largest amount of money.

(From Xinhua Daily, July 26, 2003 )

This is your masterpiece

Picasso spent his life opposing aggressive wars. During the Second World War, German troops frequented the Picasso Museum of Art in Paris, and one day Picasso gave each German soldier a copy of his "Guernica". The painting depicted the Spanish city of Guernica after it had been bombed by the Germans. One German officer pointed to the painting and asked Picasso, "Is this your masterpiece?"

"No, this is your masterpiece." Picasso's remark left the German officer staggered.

Good and Evil by Heart

Liquid Sand

Su Dongpo believed in Buddhism. Once he and the abbot were debating the sutras, and the two sat on a futon, arguing with each other for a long time.

The Abbot said, "What am I in the eyes of the other?"

Su Dongpo said, "Abbot you are a pile of cow shit in my eyes." The Abbot smiled slightly and said, "You, Abbot, are a flower in my eyes."

Su Dongpo returned satisfied and spoke to his little sister about this. The little sister said, "As the Buddhists say, the heart is in the hell margin of evil thoughts, you have cow shit in your heart, only then will you see others as cow shit."

Su Dongpo heard this and was filled with shame.

Any thoughts of good and evil actually exist in the heart long before they become actions and facts. Those whose hearts are full of evil thoughts will look at others differently, while those whose hearts are full of friendship and tolerance will bring joy to others and themselves.

Buddhists say there is hell and heaven. The person who wants to do evil is full of anger in his heart, and the person who has done evil will have nightmares every day because he is afraid that other people will find out about his evil deeds; although he is on earth, his heart is in hell. And the good people, bright and open, with people, no fame, fortune, gain and loss, although the body in the world, the heart is early in heaven.

In fact, good and evil are sometimes just a thought away, a line away. In Mr. Feng Zikai's memoirs, there is an anecdote about his mentor Li Shutong. During a music class, one student was reading an idle book downstairs while another spat on the floor. Mr. Li, who was an extremely serious person, saw it on the spot but kept quiet. After class, Mr. Li asked the two students to stay and told them in a very gentle voice that they should not read or spit in class next time. The two students felt that the teacher was making a big deal out of it and were about to plead their case when they saw the respected gentleman bow to them, and the two students turned red in the face.

In front of the good, only the spring breeze and rain like moisturizing, here there is no difference between high and low, when a person's heart is only good thoughts, all the earthly splendor of the light has long receded, only one of the souls of equality and should be respected.

--Jiefang Daily, 2003.10.24

Yong Qi

In the 19th century, at Harrow School, a prestigious public school in England, there was often bullying of the weak and the strong, and bullying of the small.

One day, a tough, tall boy, stopped in front of a new student, ordering him to do things for himself, the newcomer, do not understand the "original", flatly refused. Tall man infuriated, a grabbed the collar of the newborn, split the head to beat up, the mouth also cursed: "you this kid, in order to let you be smart, I have to enlighten you!" The new student grimaced in pain, but refused to beg for mercy.

The students on the sidelines either looked on coldly, laughed, or walked away. Only one weak-looking boy, watching this bullying scene, tears gradually welling up in his eyes, finally couldn't help but yell: "How many more times do you have to hit him before you give up!"

The taller one looked toward the shrill, thin voice of protest, and seeing that it was also a skinny freshman, scolded fiercely, "Why do you ask, you ungrateful fellow?"

The freshman stared at him with tearful eyes and replied without fear, "However many more blows you have to give, let me endure half the punches for him."

The taller man looked at his tears and couldn't help but stop his hands in shame at the unexpected reply.

From that point on, the voices of the school town against the violence of evil began to ring out, acts of kindness to help the weak grew, and the two freshmen became close friends. The beaten teenager, who was y impressed by the value of love and goodness, later became the prestigious British statesman Robert Beale; and the one who stepped forward and was willing to share the pain of the unfamiliar and the weak was the great poet Byron, who became famous all over the world.

Life, we also need to be like Byron, in other people just fear to escape, or gloating to watch, can come up with rare courage, for the sake of good, for the sake of love, but also for the enlightenment and shock of those who are indifferent to the heart.

Five and ten dollars

There was an American country boy, people took out a five-dollar bill and a ten-dollar bill to send him, let him pick one, he picked the five-dollar bill. People said he was stupid, and they mocked him and laughed at him. The story spread, and many people came to him to try it out, but the result was the same, and the story spread far and wide. A few decades later, this kid became the President of the United States. A reporter asked him about it, "Is it true?"

"It's true." The president replied.

"Then why do you want five dollars and not ten?"

"If I had asked for ten dollars in the first place, who else would have taken the money later to try to see if I was really stupid?"

There are many smart people in the world, as if this American president. He gets a bargain but manages to make it pleasant for the other person as well. There are also many people in the world who think they are smart and laugh at others without realizing that they are the real fools.

The Value of Freedom

In the height of summer this year, General Franks, the highly decorated four-star U.S. general, retired. The Secretary of Defense, celebrities from all walks of life, soldiers who loved him, all honored him at a send-off ceremony, and this veteran of nearly forty years of service lost many of his perks when he retired. Yet he took it lightly. He said, "The goal we seek is a way of life, and it's called freedom. Freedom is valued above all else." The meaning of freedom lies in the independence of his personality and the freedom of his mind.

Washington's success was such that he offered his resignation twice during his presidency. At the time of his departure from the political arena, he said, "Friends, the day is not far distant when a citizen will be re-elected to administer the government of the United States ...... I have made a mark with good intentions in the organization and administration of the government. With advancing years and declining health, I feel that retirement is not only necessary for me, but will be welcome." Soon he became a real farmer, Washington, and returned from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon. From Philadelphia he returned to Mount Vernon, where he operated a large orchard farm; and his gardens were so well landscaped that they were alive with babbling brooks, buzzing bees, and flowing flowers. He traveled in the woods and springs and enjoyed himself. He was a great practitioner, a great forerunner of the idea of human freedom, freedom was the highest principle in his life, and in order to pursue freedom, he went on expanding his life experience, so he was also a lover of creation. The joy of labor, implemented in the reality of the peach blossom, is the spirit of freedom to his reward.

May be wrong