Where Can You Find the Riches
An African farmer had heard tales about other farmers who had made millions of dollars by discovering diamond mines. These tales so excited the farmer that he could hardly wait to sell his farm and go prospecting for diamonds himself.
一個非洲農民聽說過很多關于其他農民們因為發(fā)現(xiàn)鉆礦而一夜暴富的故事。這些故事讓這位農民如此心潮澎湃，他等不及要賣掉農場，踏上探礦之路。
So he sold the farm and spent the rest of his life wandering the African continent, searching unsuccessfully for the gleaming gems that brought such high prices on the markets of the world.
于是他賣掉了農場，余生游蕩在非洲大陸，尋找著那在世界市場上價格始終高居不下的發(fā)光的寶石。
Finally, broke, worn out, and in a fit of despondency, he threw himself into a river and drowned.
最后，他破產了、筋疲力盡了，一時的絕望之下，他投河自盡。
Meanwhile, back at the farm, the man who had bought his farm happened to be crossing a small stream on the property one day when he saw something gleaming at the bottom of the stream. He picked it up. It was a sparkling stone - a good size stone - and, admiring it, he later put it on his fireplace mantel as an interesting curiosity.
與此同時，在原來那個農場，那個買下農場的人一天碰巧跨過農場里的一條小溪，他看見溪底有什么東西在閃閃發(fā)光。他把它撿了起來，是一塊發(fā)光的石頭——很大一塊——他欣賞著它，并把它當作一個有趣的珍藏放在壁爐架上。
Several weeks later, a visitor admired the stone, looked closely at it, hefted it in his hand and nearly fainted. He asked the farmer if he knew what he'd found. When the farmer said no, that he thought it was just a piece of crystal, the visitor told him he had found one of the largest diamonds ever discovered.
幾個星期后，一位客人來欣賞那塊石頭，他仔細觀摩著，放在手上掂量著，然后幾乎暉厥過去。他問那個農民是否知道自己撿到的是什么。農民說不知道，他以為只是一塊水晶。那位客人告訴他，他撿到的是迄今為止人類發(fā)現(xiàn)的最大鉆石之一。
The farmer was astonished. He told the man that his creek was full of these brilliant stones, and his farmland was covered with them. Not all were as large, perhaps, as the one on his mantel, but they were sprinkled generously throughout his property.
那個農民震驚極了。他告訴那位客人他的小溪里到處都是這種發(fā)光的石頭，他的農田也被這種石頭覆蓋著。也許不是所有都象壁爐架上的那塊一樣大，但是它們遍布農場的每一個角落。
Needless to say, the farm the first farmer had sold, so that he could search for a diamond mine, turned out to be the most productive diamond mine on the entire African continent.
不必說，第一個農民為了搜尋鉆礦而賣掉的農場結果卻是整個非洲大陸上最多產的鉆礦。
The first farmer had owned, free and clear, acres of diamonds, but had sold them for practically nothing in order to look for them elsewhere.
第一個農民本來名正言順地擁有幾畝的鉆石，但他卻為了去其他地方找鉆石而把它們賣了，賣得一文不值。
The moral is clear: If the first farmer hadonly taken the time to study and prepare himself - to learn what diamonds looked like in their rough state - and, since he had already owned a piece of land, to thoroughly explore the property he had before looking elsewhere, his wildest dreams would have come true.
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寓意很明白，如果第一個農民花一點時間去學習和準備——弄清楚未經打磨的鉆石長什么樣——并在探索其他地方之前先徹底地發(fā)掘一下自己已經擁有的那塊地，他的美夢就可以成真。
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