6篇值得背誦的英語美文

第一篇? ? Youth 青春

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonders, the unfailing appetite for what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart, there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, courage and power from man and from the infinite, so long as you are young.

When your aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you’ve grown old, even at 20; but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there’s hope you may die young at 80.

第二篇? Three Days to See(Excerpts)? 假如給我三天光明(節(jié)選)

All of us have read thrilling stories in which the hero had only a limited and specified time to live. Sometimes it was as long as a year, sometimes as short as 24 hours. But always we were interested in discovering just how the doomed hero chose to spend his last days or his last hours. I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice, not condemned criminals whose sphere of activities is strictly delimited.

Such stories set us thinking, wondering what we should do under similar circumstances. What events, what experiences, what associations should we crowd into those last hours as mortal beings, what regrets?

Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. We should live each day with gentleness, vigor and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come. There are those, of course, who would adopt the Epicurean motto of “Eat, drink, and be merry”. But most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death.

In stories the doomed hero is usually saved at the last minute by some stroke of fortune, but almost always his sense of values is changed. He becomes more appreciative of the meaning of life and its permanent spiritual values. It has often been noted that those who live, or have lived, in the shadow of death bring a mellow sweetness to everything they do.

Most of us, however, take life for granted. We know that one day we must die, but usually we picture that day as far in the future. When we are in buoyant health, death is all but unimaginable. We seldom think of it. The days stretch out in an endless vista. So we go about our petty tasks, hardly aware of our listless attitude toward life.

The same lethargy, I am afraid, characterizes the use of all our faculties and senses.Only the deaf appreciate hearing, only the blind realize the manifold blessings that lie in sight. Particularly does this observation apply to those who have lost sight and hearing in adult life. But those who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the fullest use of these blessed faculties. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sounds hazily, without concentration and with little appreciation. It is the same old story of not being grateful for what we have until we lose it, of not being conscious of health until we are ill.

I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound.

第三篇? Companionship of Books? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 以書為伴

A man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as by the company he keeps; for there is a companionship of books as well as of men; and one should always live in the best company, whether it be of books or of men.

A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same today that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and cheerful of companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness; amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting and consoling us in age.

Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book just as two persons sometimes discover a friend by the admiration which both entertain for a third. There is an old proverb, ‘Love me, love my dog.” But there is more wisdom in this:” Love me, love my book.” The book is a truer and higher bond of union. Men can think, feel, and sympathize with each other through their favorite author. They live in him together, and he in them.

A good book is often the best urn of a life enshrining the best that life could think out; for the world of a man’s life is, for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. Thus the best books are treasuries of good words, the golden thoughts, which, remembered and cherished, become our constant companions and comforters.

Books possess an essence of immortality. They are by far the most lasting products of human effort. Temples and statues decay, but books survive. Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh today as when they first passed through their author’s minds, ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page. The only effect of time have been to sift out the bad products; for nothing in literature can long survive e but what is really good.

Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see the as if they were really alive; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them, grieve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were in a measure actors with them in the scenes which they describe.

The great and good do not die, even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which on still listens.

第四篇? ? If I Rest,I Rust? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 如果我休息芜果,我就會(huì)生銹

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.

第五篇? ? Ambition 抱負(fù)

It is not difficult to imagine a world short of ambition. It would probably be a kinder world: with out demands, without abrasions, without disappointments. People would have time for reflection. Such work as they did would not be for themselves but for the collectivity.

Competition would never enter in. conflict would be eliminated, tension become a thing of the past. The stress of creation would be at an end. Art would no longer be troubling, but purely celebratory in its functions. Longevity would be increased, for fewer people would die of heart attack or stroke caused by tumultuous endeavor. Anxiety would be extinct. Time would stretch on and on, with ambition long departed from the human heart.

Ah, how unrelieved boring life would be!

There is a strong view that holds that success is a myth, and ambition therefore a sham. Does this mean that success does not really exist? That achievement is at bottom empty? That the efforts of men and women are of no significance alongside the force of movements and events now not all success, obviously, is worth esteeming, nor all ambition worth cultivating. Which are and which are not is something one soon enough learns on one’s own. But even the most cynical secretly admit that success exists; that achievement counts for a great deal; and that the true myth is that the actions of men and women are useless. To believe otherwise is to take on a point of view that is likely to be deranging. It is, in its implications, to remove all motives for competence, interest in attainment, and regard for posterity.

We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or in drift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed. In the end, forming our own destiny is what ambition is about.

第六篇? What I have Lived for? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 我為何而生

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy---ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of my life for a few hours for this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness---that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what---at last---I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always it brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

最后編輯于
?著作權(quán)歸作者所有,轉(zhuǎn)載或內(nèi)容合作請(qǐng)聯(lián)系作者
  • 序言:七十年代末,一起剝皮案震驚了整個(gè)濱河市,隨后出現(xiàn)的幾起案子,更是在濱河造成了極大的恐慌,老刑警劉巖银受,帶你破解...
    沈念sama閱讀 216,692評(píng)論 6 501
  • 序言:濱河連續(xù)發(fā)生了三起死亡事件,死亡現(xiàn)場(chǎng)離奇詭異,居然都是意外死亡驼抹,警方通過查閱死者的電腦和手機(jī),發(fā)現(xiàn)死者居然都...
    沈念sama閱讀 92,482評(píng)論 3 392
  • 文/潘曉璐 我一進(jìn)店門拜鹤,熙熙樓的掌柜王于貴愁眉苦臉地迎上來框冀,“玉大人,你說我怎么就攤上這事敏簿∶饕玻” “怎么了宣虾?”我有些...
    開封第一講書人閱讀 162,995評(píng)論 0 353
  • 文/不壞的土叔 我叫張陵,是天一觀的道長(zhǎng)温数。 經(jīng)常有香客問我绣硝,道長(zhǎng),這世上最難降的妖魔是什么撑刺? 我笑而不...
    開封第一講書人閱讀 58,223評(píng)論 1 292
  • 正文 為了忘掉前任鹉胖,我火速辦了婚禮,結(jié)果婚禮上够傍,老公的妹妹穿的比我還像新娘甫菠。我一直安慰自己,他們只是感情好王带,可當(dāng)我...
    茶點(diǎn)故事閱讀 67,245評(píng)論 6 388
  • 文/花漫 我一把揭開白布淑蔚。 她就那樣靜靜地躺著,像睡著了一般愕撰。 火紅的嫁衣襯著肌膚如雪刹衫。 梳的紋絲不亂的頭發(fā)上,一...
    開封第一講書人閱讀 51,208評(píng)論 1 299
  • 那天搞挣,我揣著相機(jī)與錄音带迟,去河邊找鬼。 笑死囱桨,一個(gè)胖子當(dāng)著我的面吹牛仓犬,可吹牛的內(nèi)容都是我干的。 我是一名探鬼主播舍肠,決...
    沈念sama閱讀 40,091評(píng)論 3 418
  • 文/蒼蘭香墨 我猛地睜開眼搀继,長(zhǎng)吁一口氣:“原來是場(chǎng)噩夢(mèng)啊……” “哼!你這毒婦竟也來了翠语?” 一聲冷哼從身側(cè)響起叽躯,我...
    開封第一講書人閱讀 38,929評(píng)論 0 274
  • 序言:老撾萬榮一對(duì)情侶失蹤,失蹤者是張志新(化名)和其女友劉穎肌括,沒想到半個(gè)月后点骑,有當(dāng)?shù)厝嗽跇淞掷锇l(fā)現(xiàn)了一具尸體,經(jīng)...
    沈念sama閱讀 45,346評(píng)論 1 311
  • 正文 獨(dú)居荒郊野嶺守林人離奇死亡谍夭,尸身上長(zhǎng)有42處帶血的膿包…… 初始之章·張勛 以下內(nèi)容為張勛視角 年9月15日...
    茶點(diǎn)故事閱讀 37,570評(píng)論 2 333
  • 正文 我和宋清朗相戀三年黑滴,在試婚紗的時(shí)候發(fā)現(xiàn)自己被綠了。 大學(xué)時(shí)的朋友給我發(fā)了我未婚夫和他白月光在一起吃飯的照片紧索。...
    茶點(diǎn)故事閱讀 39,739評(píng)論 1 348
  • 序言:一個(gè)原本活蹦亂跳的男人離奇死亡袁辈,死狀恐怖,靈堂內(nèi)的尸體忽然破棺而出珠漂,到底是詐尸還是另有隱情吵瞻,我是刑警寧澤葛菇,帶...
    沈念sama閱讀 35,437評(píng)論 5 344
  • 正文 年R本政府宣布甘磨,位于F島的核電站橡羞,受9級(jí)特大地震影響,放射性物質(zhì)發(fā)生泄漏济舆。R本人自食惡果不足惜卿泽,卻給世界環(huán)境...
    茶點(diǎn)故事閱讀 41,037評(píng)論 3 326
  • 文/蒙蒙 一、第九天 我趴在偏房一處隱蔽的房頂上張望滋觉。 院中可真熱鬧签夭,春花似錦、人聲如沸椎侠。這莊子的主人今日做“春日...
    開封第一講書人閱讀 31,677評(píng)論 0 22
  • 文/蒼蘭香墨 我抬頭看了看天上的太陽我纪。三九已至慎宾,卻和暖如春,著一層夾襖步出監(jiān)牢的瞬間浅悉,已是汗流浹背趟据。 一陣腳步聲響...
    開封第一講書人閱讀 32,833評(píng)論 1 269
  • 我被黑心中介騙來泰國打工, 沒想到剛下飛機(jī)就差點(diǎn)兒被人妖公主榨干…… 1. 我叫王不留术健,地道東北人汹碱。 一個(gè)月前我還...
    沈念sama閱讀 47,760評(píng)論 2 369
  • 正文 我出身青樓,卻偏偏與公主長(zhǎng)得像荞估,于是被迫代替她去往敵國和親咳促。 傳聞我的和親對(duì)象是個(gè)殘疾皇子,可洞房花燭夜當(dāng)晚...
    茶點(diǎn)故事閱讀 44,647評(píng)論 2 354