英语美文诵读

Self-RelianceTrust yourself. These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint(微弱的，无力的) and inaudible(听不见的) as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy(阴谋，共谋) against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing(使安全，获得) of his bread to each shareholder(股东), to surrender(投降，屈服) the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity(一致，符合，遵守). Self-reliance is its aversion(嫌恶，憎恨). It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous(艰巨的，艰难的) in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.The objection(反对) to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, contribute to ad dead Bible Society, vote with a great party either for the Governmentor against it, spread your table like base housekeepers, under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are. And of course so much force is withdrawn from your proper life. But do your thing, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce(加强) yourself. For nonconformity, the world whips(抽打，彻底打败) you with its displeasure. When the indignation(愤怒) of the people is added, when the ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity(宽大，雅量) and religion to treat it godlike as a trifle(琐事) of no concernment(有关事项).I Will Live This Day as if It Is My LastI will live this day as if it is my last.And what shall I do with this last precious day which remains in my keeping? I will waste not a moment mourning(哀悼) yesterday’s defeats, yesterday’s aches of the heart, for why should I throw good after bad? Can sand flow upward in the hour glass(沙漏)? Will the sun rise where it sets and set where it rises? Can I relive(重新过活，再体验) the errors of yesterday and right them? Can I call back yesterday’s wounds and make them whole? Can I become younger than yesterday? Can I take back the evil that was spoken, the blows that were struck, the pain that was caused?No. Yesterday is buried forever and I will think of it no more.I will live this day as if it is my last.The duties of today I shall fulfill today. Today I shall fondle(爱抚) my children while they are young; tomorrow they will be gone, and so will I. Today I shall embrace my woman with sweet kisses; tomorrow she will be gone, and so will I. Today I shall lift up a friend in need; tomorrow he will no longer cry for help, nor will I hear his cries. Today I shall give myself in sacrifice and work; tomorrow I will have nothing to give, and there will be none to receive. I will live this day as if it is my last. And if it is not, I shall fall to my knees and give thanks.Rush（匆匆）Swallows may have gone, but there is a time of return; willow trees may have died back(=wither枯萎，凋谢), but there is a time of regreening; peach blossoms may have fallen, but they will bloom again. Now you the wise, tell me, why should our days leave us, never to return? If they had been stolen by someone, who could it be? Where could he hide them? If they had made teh escape themselves, then where could they stay at the moment?I don’t know how many days I have been given to spend, but I do feel my hands are getting empty. Taking stock(盘算，思考) silently, I find thatmore than eight thousand days have already slid away from me. Like a drop of water from the point of a needle disappearing into the ocean, my days are dripping into the steam of time, soundless, traceless. Already sweat is starting on my forehead, and tears welling up in my eyes. Those that have gone have gone for good(永远), those to come keep coming, yet in between, how swift is the shift, in such a rush? When I get up in the morning, the slanting(倾斜) sun marks its presence in my small room in two or three oblongs(长方形). The sun has feet, look, he is treading on, lightly and furtively; and I am caught, blankly, in his revolution. Thus - the day flows away through the sink when I wash my hands, wears off in the bowl when I eat my meal, and passes away before my day-dreaming gaze as reflect in silence. I can feel his haste now, so I reach out my hands to hold him back, but he keeps flowing past my withholding(拒绝，抑制，制止) hands. In the evening, as I lie in bed, he strides over my body, glides past my feet, in his agile(敏捷的，灵活的) way. The moment I open my eyes and meet the sun again, one whole day has gone. I bury my face in my hands and heave a sigh(呼气). But the new day begins to flash past in the sigh.What can I do, in this bustling(熙熙攘攘的) world, with my days flying in their escape? Nothing but to hesitate, to rush. What have I been doing in that eight-thousand-day rush, apart from hesitating? Those bygone days have been dispersed(分散，使消失) as smoke by a light wind, orevaporated(蒸发，挥发) as mist by the morning sun. What traces have I left behind me? Have I ever left behind any gossamer(蛛丝) traces at all?I have come to the world, stark naked; am I to go back, in a blink, in the same stark nakedness? It is not fair though: why should I have made such a trip for nothing!You the wise, tell me, why should our days leave us, never to return?28 March,1922Let It Be （顺其自然）As far as we know, we are the only species on the planet who have been given the gift of awareness of our own mortality. Everything here eventually dies; we’re just the lucky ones who get to think about this fact every day. How are you going to cope with this information? When I was nine, I couldn’t do a thing with it except cry. Later, over the years, my hypersensitive awareness of the time’s speed led me to push myself to experience life at a maximum pace. Hence all the traveling, all the romances, all the ambition, and all the pasta. Indeed, if I could have split myself into many Liz Gilberts, I would willingly have done so, in order not to miss a moment of life.However, as I searched frantically for contentment for so many years in so m any ways, and all these acquisition and accomplishments —theyrun you down in the end. Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death.You have to admit that you can’t catch it. You’re not supposed to catch it. At some point, you got to let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you.Try dropping it! This is the message I’m getting. Sit quietly now and cease your relentless participation. Watch what happens. The birds do not crash dead out of the sky in the mid-flight, any way. The trees do not wither and die, the rivers do not run red with blood. The life continues to go on. Why are you so sure that your micromanagement of every moment in this whole world is so essential? Why don’t you let it be?On Achieving Success （论成功）We cannot travel every path. Success must be won along one line. We must make our business the one life purpose to which every other must be subordinate.I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly. If it be wrong, leave it undone.The men of history were not perpetually looking into the mirror to make sure of their own size. Absorbed in their work they did it. They did it so well that the wondering world sees them to be great, and labeled themaccordingly.To live with a high ideal is a successful life. It is not what one does, but what one tries to do, that makes a man strong. “Eternal vigilance,” it has been said, “is the price of liberty.” With equal truth it may be said, “Unceasing effort is the price of success.” If we do not work with our might, others will; and they will outstrip us in the race, and pluck the prize from our grasp.Success grows less and less dependent on luck and chance. Self-distrust is the cause of most of our failures.The great and indispensable help to success is character. Character is a crystallized habit, the result of training and conviction. Every character is influenced by heredity, environment and education. But these apart, if every man were not to be a great extent the architect of his own character, he would be a fatalist, and irresponsible creature of circumstances. Instead of saying that man is a creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance. From the same materials one man builds palaces, another hovel. Bricks and mortar are mortar and bricks, until the architect can make them something else. The true way to gain much is never to desire to gain too much.Wise men don’t care for what they can’t have.Man Is Here For The Sake of Other Men(人是为了别人而活着) Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose.From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know that man is here for the sake of other men -- above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received. My peace of mind is often troubled by the depressing sense that I have borrowed too heavily from the work other men.To ponder interminably over the reason for one’s own existence or the meaning of life in general seems to me, from an objective point of view, to be sheer folly. And yet everyone holds certain ideals by which he guides his aspiration and his judgment. The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort and happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for herd of cattle.Do This, and You’ll Be Welcome Everywhere(让自己成为一个受欢迎的人)If you want others to like you, if you want to develop real friendships, if you want to help others as the same time as you help yourself, keep this principle in mind: become genuinely interested in other people.Yet I know and you know people who blunder through life trying to persuade other people into becoming interested in them. Of course, it doesn’t work. People are not interested in you. They are not interested in me. They are interested in themselves - morning, noon and after dinner. Alfred Adler, the famous Viennese psychologist, wrote a book entitled What Life Should Meant to You. In that book he says, “it is the individual who is not interested in his fellow man who has the greatest difficulty in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from such individuals that all human failures spring.”I spent an evening in the dressing room of Howard Thurston the last time he appeared on Broadway - Thurston was the acknowledged dean of magicians. I asked Mr. Thurston to tell me the secret of his success. He said he succeeded because he had two things that the others didn’t have. First, he had the ability to put his personality across the footlights. He was a master showman. He knew human nature. Everything he did, every gesture, every intonation of his voice, every lifting of an eyebrow had been carefully rehearsed in advance, and his actions were timed to split seconds. But, in addition to that, Thurston had a genuine interest inpeople. He told me that many magicians would look at the audience and say to themselves: “well, there is a bunch of idiots out there, a bunch of donkeys; I’ll fool them all right.” But Thurston’s method was totally different. He told me that every time he went on stage, he said to himself: “I’m grateful because these people came to see me. They make it possible for me to make my living in a very agreeable way. I’m going to give the very best I possibly can.”。