卷首語
作者：
Many years ago, a wise old king called his wise men together and gave them a commission. "I want you to compile, the wisdom of the ages for me. "Put it in book form so we might leave it to posterity." The wise men left their king and worked for a long period of time. They finally returned with twelve volumes and proudly proclaimed that this truly was the "wisdom of the ages." The king looked at the twelve volumes and said, "Gentlemen, I' m certain this is the wisdom of the ages and contains the knowledge we should leave to mankind. However, it is so long, I fear the people won' t read it. Condense it." Again, the wise men worked long and hard before they returned with only one volume. The king repeated his request that they condense their work. The wise men finally reduced it to a sentence. When the wise old king saw the sentence, he was absolutely elated. The sentence simply said, "There isn't any free lunch."
很久以前，一位英明的老國王將全國的智者召集到一起，並交給他們一項任務：“我想讓你們替我編纂時代的智慧，用書本的形式把它記載下來，因此我們可以傳給子孫。”這些智者離開後，他們用很長的時間才完成。最後他們帶著12冊巨著回到王宮，驕傲地宣稱這是真正的“時代的智慧”。國王看了一眼這12冊巨著，說道：“先生們，我確信這些是時代智慧的結晶，囊括了各種各樣的知識，我們應該將其流傳給後代。但是，它太長了，我擔心沒有誰會將它讀完，縮寫一下吧。”又工作了很長時間之後，謀士們費盡心力，12冊巨著最後被寫成一冊，帶到國王那裏。可是，國王仍然要求再簡短些。最後謀士們把它壓縮成了一句話。英明的老國王看到這句話時，喜出望外。這句簡短的話就是：天下沒有免費的午餐。