英文勵志美文摘抄閱讀
優美的文字於細微處傳達出美感,並浸潤着學生的心靈。通過英語美文,學生不僅能夠感受語言之美,領悟語言之用,還能產生學習語言的興趣。小編精心收集了英文勵志美文，供大家欣賞學習!
By William Zorach
It is strange how certain things make a great impression on us in childhood. I remember these verses by Longfellow:
"Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the graves is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul."
And again:
"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time."
Of course, my generation was much more sentimental than today's youth but whether this was great poetry, it communicated in simple language a message, and made a lasting impression on a small boy.
When I was fifteen I had an imaginary guardian angel and when I went to the country to sketch on Sundays, I asked for guidance, praying that someday I would be a fine artist and paint nature as beautiful as she really is. What this little ceremony brought me was faith in the world and a belief in myself.
My faiths and beliefs have been badly strained. The Atomic Age has caught us in a web of fear. Our lives seem so impermanent and uncertain. There is such a waste of human potential, of things worth while in people which never find expression. I sometimes think it's a miracle that anything survives. Yet I believe that a thread of permanence runs through everything from the beginning of time, and the most valuable residue will survive.
I believe everybody has an urge to somehow spin his own life into a thread of permanence. It is the impulse of life. Some would call it the drive to immortality. Whatever it is, I think it is good because it gives purpose to existence. But purpose is not enough. Artists are supposed to be notoriously impractical, but for myself, I found I had to make decisions and plans if I were to try to create anything. I realized that I must approach life not only with a sensitivity, a perception of beauty, but with a feeling of humility and reverence.
My creed as an artist is to love life and liberty and the world of people. A man who works and loves his work is often a man dreaming, and the spirit of his dreams will find forms and symbols to express that dream. It is a wonderful feeling to create something. But today, I think there is a lack of power of communication. If people, not just artists, but all kinds of people, could only open their hearts and express their sorrow, their happiness, their fears and hopes, they would discover they had an identity with the main stream of life which they never saw before.
sometimes fear and cynicism so grip our minds that we lose heart. Then I try to remember how the great artists of the ages had the power of expressiveness. Theirs was the power to communicate, to exalt, to move the observer to joy or tears, to strike terror and awe in the hearts of men; not just to decorate or merely entertain.
If we can expand the boundaries of men's thoughts and beliefs, we will discover we all have creative possibilities - talents to make ourselves real identities as individuals, with a hold on the thread of immortality. If we can awaken ourselves to it, I am convinced we shall find that this is an alive and exciting age of adventure and experimentation from which a new beauty and a finer world will emerge.
英文勵志美文：Spiritual Handholds on Lifeby Dr. Fred Dow Fagg, JR
The view of the high Sierra Lake, nestled in the snow and rock slightly below the timber line,was beautiful from my vantage point some five hundred feet above its shimmering surface. Iwas anxious to rejoin my companions and try the fishing before are afternoon shadow -edging out from the surrounding array of peaks - entirely covered the lake. Just a shortdistance beyond the intervening shale, the trail zigzagged down to the valley. I disliked thethought of returning by the long, tedious trail I had ascended, and decided to chance the shale- even though part of it lay above a sheer drop-off of several hundred feet.
I started working my way over the loose rock with considerable caution and had covered abouthalf the distance when I became aware of a slight but persistent yielding of the shale undermy feet. Desperately, I looked for something that would offer support and lurched forward tograsp a light outcropping of solid rock just as the surface shale underfoot - loosened from itsfoundation by the warm noonday sun - cascaded downward and disappeared over the ral seconds passed before I heard it rattle into the lake.
Finally - after due consideration of the folly of short cuts - I managed to move from handholdto handhold and, at last, pulled myself to the trail by the aid of a dwarf juniper root. I haveforgotten how many trout I caught that afternoon, but I have not forgotten the value ofhandhold.
Handholds are needed also during the course of everyday life. They provide security when thethings we depend upon seem to be slipping out from under us. What are the spiritualhandholds I have found to be most value?
First, the teachings of the humble carpenter of Nazareth - for their insistence on thesupreme worth of the individual, for their stressing of the significance of sympatheticunderstanding, and for their unsurpassed evidence of dauntless faith.
Second, the conviction that, while every person should delight in making a courageous andself-reliant effort to live up to his capabilities, there are well-springs of power outside himselfthat can be tapped - if he will avail himself of them.
Third, that the nature of this world and of the people in it is determined more by our individualvision, understanding and conduct than by any material environmental factors, and that - inother words - nothing will produce the good world but the good man.
These are the principal spiritual handholds I have found to possess enduring value. Theyoffer both an exciting challenge and a calm assurance. They are the things I believe.
英文勵志美文：Do you know your special talent?Anne Heywood
What I am about to say may appear to be plugging my own business, but it’s what I know best—and I believe it deeply and sincerely. I believe that every human being has a talent—something that he can do better than anyone else. And I believe that the distinction betweenso-called “creative” talents and ordinary run-of-the-mill talents is an unnecessary and a man-made distinction. I have known exterminators and typists, waitresses and machinists whosecreative joy and self-fulfillment in their work could not be surpassed by Shakespeare’s orEinstein’s.
When I was in my teens, I read a quotation from Thomas Carlyle: “Blessed is he who hasfound his work. Let him ask no other blessedness.” At the time I thought that was a prettygrim remark, but I know now that Mr. Carlyle was right. When you find the thing that you cando better than anything else in the world, then all the wonderful byproducts fall in line: financialsecurity, happy personal relationships, peace of mind. I believe that until you find it, yoursearch for the byproducts will be in vain.
I also believe that in the process of searching, no experience is ever wasted, unless we allowourselves to run out of hope. In my own case, I had 34 different jobs before I found the rightone. Many of those jobs were heartbreakingly difficult. A few of them involved working withunscrupulous and horribly unpleasant people. Yet, in looking back, I can see that the mostunpleasant of those jobs, in many cases, gave me the biggest dividends—the most valuablepreparation for my proper life work.
And I have seen this happen in the destinies of hundreds of people. Periods which they thoughtwere hopeless, dark, and of no possible practical value have turned out to be the most pricelessexperience they ever had. I know a girl who is a famous package designer for Americanindustry. She was just given a promotion for which she competed with six well-qualifieddesigners. Her past, like all of ours, had its good times and its bad times. One of the worst ofthe bad times was a period when she lost her husband and was left with two small children tosupport. She took a clerking job in a grocery store because her apartment was on the floorabove it and between customers she could run up and keep an eye on the babies.
It was a two-year period of great despair, during which she was constantly on the verge ofsuicide. Yet the other day when she told me of her promotion to the top package design job,she exclaimed in astonishment, “And do you know that the single factor which swung it in myfavor was that I alone had over-the-counter experience with the customers who buy ourpackaged foods!”
When people talk about the sweet uses of adversity, I think they unduly stress a grim andkind of hopeless resignation, a conviction that, like unpleasant medicine, it’s somehow “goodfor us.” But I think it’s much more than that. I know that the unhappy periods of our livesoffer us concrete and useful plus-values, chief among them a heightened understanding andcompassion for others. We may not see it at the time, we may consider the experience entirelywasted, but, as Emerson says, “The years teach much which the days never know.”
你知道自己的特殊才能嗎?
安妮.海伍德
我相信，所謂“創造性”才能與普通才能間的差距不過是一種人爲的不必要的區別。除非我們允許自己放棄希望，否則任何經歷都會在找尋的過程中發揮作用。
也許我要說的這些話看起來像是爲自己的生意做宣傳，然而這卻是我最瞭解的東西……我對它的信仰真誠而深切。
我相信，每個人都是天才——相比別人而言，有些事他可能做得更好。我相信，所謂“創造性”才能與普通才能間的差距不過是一種人爲的不必要的區別。我認識的一些殺蟲員、打字員、女侍者和機械工，他們在工作中所創造的快樂與實現的自我價值，也許是莎士比亞或愛因斯坦也無法超越的。
我在年少時曾讀過托馬斯.卡萊爾的一句話：“一個人若是找到適合自己的工作，他便是幸福的，請讓他別再祈求其他的幸福了。”當時，我覺得這句話過於殘酷沉悶，而如今才知道卡萊爾先生是正確的。當你找到世上你能做得最好的事情時，穩定的收入、快樂的人際關係以及平靜的心情等所有奇妙的“副產品”都會接踵而來。我相信，除非你找到它，否則你對一切“副產品”的追求也不過是徒勞而已。
我也相信，除非我們允許自己放棄希望，否則任何經歷都會在找尋的過程中發揮作用。就我而言，在找到合適的工作前，我曾嘗試過34種不同的工作。其中有很多工作的艱難程度簡直令人難耐。在有些工作中，還會與一些不道德且令人討厭的人相處。但是，回過頭來才領悟到，在很多情況下，我從那些最令人頭疼的工作中得到了最豐厚的報酬，它們成爲我正確事業生涯的最有價值的準備。
在成百上千人的命運中，我也看到了這一點。他們擁有的最寶貴的經歷，正是那些曾經被認爲絕望、黑暗、不可能有實用價值的時期。我的一位朋友現在是美國著名工業包裝設計師。最近，在與6位高水平設計師的競爭中，她脫穎而出，得到了提升。像我們所有人一樣，她的過去也有巔峯與低谷。她失去了丈夫，還得撫養兩個孩子，那是她最艱難痛苦的時期。她在自家樓下找了一份雜貨店營業員的工作，這樣一來，在沒有顧客時她就可以抽空跑上樓看看孩子。那是她最絕望的兩年，期間她幾度想要自殺。但是，在她告訴我她被提升爲首席包裝設計師的那天，她驚歎道：“你知道嗎?只有我與購買我們包裝食品的顧客有過直接的接觸，而這正是我獲得這份工作的唯一原因。”
我認爲，人們在談論逆境的益處時，過度強調了一種冷酷與絕望的順從，一種良藥苦口般的信仰——逆境或多或少都有益於我們。然而，我覺得它的益處遠不止此。我知道，生活中的不幸會帶給我們具體而有用的附加值，其中最主要的就是對人們更深切的理解與同情。也許，我們當時並未意識到這一點，也許會認爲這些經歷毫無價值，但是，正如愛默生所言：“年復一年所積累的學問，是每日每天所無法瞭解的。”
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