The significant inscription found on an old key---“If I rest, I rust”---would be an excellent motto for those who are afflicted 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.

Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasury of achievement. If Hugh Miller, after toiling all day in a quarry, 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 all---not inconstant, spasmodic, or ill-directed labor; but faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose. Just as truly as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry the price of noble and enduring success.

譯文

如果我休息，我就會生銹

在一把舊鑰匙上發現了一則意義深遠的銘文——如果我休息，我就會生銹。對于那些懶散而煩惱的人來說，這將是至理名言。甚至最為勤勉的人也以此作為警示：如果一個人有才能而不用，就像廢棄鑰匙上的鐵一樣，這些才能就會很快生銹，并最終無法完成安排給自己的工作。

有些人想取得偉人所獲得并保持的成就，他們就必須不斷運用自身才能，以便開啟知識的大門，即那些通往人類努力探求的各個領域的大門，這些領域包括各種職業：科學，藝術，文學，農業等。

勤奮使開啟成功寶庫的鑰匙保持光亮。如果休•米勒在采石場勞作一天后，晚上的時光用來休息消遣的話，他就不會成為名垂青史的地質學家。著名數學家愛德蒙•斯通如果閑暇時無所事事，就不會出版數學詞典，也不會發現開啟數學之門的鑰匙。如果蘇格蘭青年弗格森在山坡上放羊時，讓他那思維活躍的大腦處于休息狀態，而不是借助一串珠子計算星星的位置，他就不會成為著名的天文學家。

勞動征服一切。這里所指的勞動不是斷斷續續的，間歇性的或方向偏差的勞動，而是堅定的，不懈的，方向正確的每日勞動。正如要想擁有自由就要時刻保持警惕一樣，要想取得偉大的，持久的成功，就必須堅持不懈地努力。