随心所欲: 生而为赢·新东方英语背诵美文30篇skip to main | skip to sidebar
随心所欲
2007年11月18日 星期日
生而为赢·新东方英语背诵美文30篇
第一篇：Youth 青春
Youth is not a time of life; it's a state of mind; it's not a matter of rosy
cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it's a matter of the will, a quality of the
imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it's the freshness of the deep springs of
life.
Youth means a tempera-mental predominance of courage over timidity, of the
appetite for the adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of
60 more than 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 spring back to dust.
Whether 60 or 16 ,there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the
unfailing childlike appetite of 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 message of beauty ,hope, cheer, courage and power from men and
from the infinite, so long are you young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cyniciam and
the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20,but as long as your
aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at
80.
第二篇： Three Days to See(Excerpts) 假如给我三天光明（节选）
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 twenty-four hours, but always we were interested in discovering just how the
doomed man 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 up thinking, wondering what we should do under similar
circumstances. What associations should we crowd into those last hours as mortal
beings? What happiness should we find in reviewing the past, 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 a gentleness, a 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," most people
would be chastened by the certainty of impending death.
Most of us 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 task, hardly aware of our listless
attitude towards life.
The same lethargy, I am afraid, characterizes the use of 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
constant love什么意思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 sound hazily, without
concentration, and with little appreciation. It is the same old story of not
being grateful for what we 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.
Now and then I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently
I was visited by a very good friend who had just returned from a long walk in
the woods, and I asked her what she had observed. "Nothing in particular," she
replied. I might have been incredulous had I not been accustomed to such
responses, for long ago I became convinced that the seeing see little.
How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and
see nothing worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest
me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands
lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough shaggy bark of a
pine. In spring I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud, the
first sign of awakening Nature after her winter's sleep I feel the delightful,
velvety texture of a flower, and discover its remarkable convolutions; and
something of the miracle of Nature is revealed to me. Occasionally, if I am very
fortunate, I place my hand gently in a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a
bird in full song. I am delighted to have cool waters of a brook rush through my
open fingers. To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more
welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug. To me the pageant of seasons is a
thrilling and unending drama, the action of which streams through my finger
tips. At times my heart cries out with longing to see all these things. If I can
get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by
sight. Yet, those who have eyes apparently see little. The panorama of color and
action fill the world is taken for granted. It is human, perhaps, to appreciate
little that which we have and to long for that which we have not, but it is a
great pity that in the world of light and the gift of sight is used only as mere
convenience rather that as a means of adding fullness to life.
Oh, th
e things that I should see if I had the power of sight for three days!
第三篇：Companionship of Books 以书为伴（接选）
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 love they have each for a
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 has been to sift out the bad products; for nothing in literature can long
survive 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 them
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.
第四篇：If I Rest,I Rust 如果我休息，我就会生锈
The significant inscription(题字，碑铭) found on an old key - "If I rest, I rust" -
would be an excellent motto for those who are afflicted with the slightest taint
of idleness. Even the industrious(勤奋的人) 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 gates that guard the entrances to the professions, to science,
art, literature, agri
culture, -every department of human endeavor.
Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasure of achievemenet. If Hugh
Miller, after toiling all day in a quarry, had devoted his evening s 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 vanquished 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 抱负
It is not difficult to imagine a world short of ambition. It would probably be a
kinder world: without 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 unrelievedly 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 taken 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 don’t choose to be born. We don’t choose our parents. We don’t choose our
historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of
our upbringing. We don’t, 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: courageou
sly or in cowardice, honorably or
dishonorably, with purpose of 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.
[annotation]:
Abrasion磨损；collectivity集体；tumultuous喧嚣的，纷乱的；Unrelievedly持续不变地，未缓和地；sham；at
bottom实际上；cynical愤世嫉俗的；derange打乱；posterity子孙，后裔；epoch时代，时期；cowardice胆怯；怯懦；
第六篇：What I have Lived for 我为何而生
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the
longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the 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 life for a few hours of 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 least -- 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 pity 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 can't, 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.
第七篇：When Love Beckons You 爱的召唤
hen love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And
when his wings enfold you, yield to him, though the sword hidden among his
pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you, believe in him, though his
voice may shatter your dreams as the nort

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