在平时的学习、工作或生活中，大家都经常接触美文吧？网络文化是一种开放、自由的'文化，给美文的概念也赋予了更多的开放自由的元素，用通俗的讲法，写的好的文章，就是美文。什么样的美文才是真正的好美文呢？以下是小编为大家整理的英语经典美文阅读，仅供参考，大家一起来看看吧。
英语经典美文阅读 篇1
Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there, they serve some sort of purpose, to teach you a lesson or help figure out who you are or who you want to become. You never know who these people may be - your roommate, neighbor, professor, long lost friend, lover or even a complete stranger who, when you lock eyes with them, you know that very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way.
And sometimes things happen to you and at the time they may seem horrible, painful and unfair, but in reflection you realize that without overcoming those obstacles, you would have never realized your potential, strength, will power or heart. Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good or bad luck. Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity - all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without these small tests, if they be events, illnesses or relationships, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere. Safe and comfortable but dull and utterly pointless.
The people you meet who affect your life and the successes and downfalls you experience - they are the ones who create who you are. Even the bad experiences can be learned from. Those lessons are the hardest and probably the most important ones.
If someone hurts you, betrays you or breaks your heart, forgive them for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your heart to. If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and opening your heart and eyes to things you would have never seen or felt without them.
Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again.
Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually listen. Let yourself fall in love, break free and set your sights high. Hold your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don"t believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you either. You can make of your life anything you wish. Create your own life and then go out and live it.
People are like tea bags - you have to put them in hot water before you know how strong they are.
英语经典美文阅读 篇2
Night after night, she came to tuck me in, even long after my childhood years. Following her longstanding custom, she"d lean down and push my long hair out of the way, then kiss my forehead.
I don"t remember when it first started annoying me her hands pushing my hair that way. But it did annoy me, for they felt work-worn and rough against my young skin. Finally, one night, I lashed out at her: Don"t do that anymore your hands are too rough! She didn"t say anything in reply. But never again did my mother close out my day with that familiar expression of her love. Lying awake long afterward, my words haunted me. But pride stifled my conscience, and I didn"t tell her I was sorry.
Time after time, with the passing years, my thoughts returned to that night. By then I missed my mother"s hands, missed her goodnight kiss upon my forehead. Sometimes the incident seemed very close, sometimes far away. But always it lurked, hauntingly, in the back of my mind.
Well, the years have passed, and I"m not a little girl anymore. Mom is in her mid-seventies, and those hands I once thought to be so rough are still doing things for me and my family. She"s been our doctor, reaching into a medicine cabinet for the remedy to calm a young girl"s stomach or soothe a boy"s scraped knee. She cooks the best fried chicken in the world gets stains out of blue jeans like I never could and still insists on dishing out ice cream at any hour of the day or night.
Through the years, my mother"s hands have put in countless hours of toil, and most of hers were before automatic washers!
Now, my own children are grown and gone. Mom no longer has Dad, and on special occasions, I find myself drawn next door to spend the night with her. So it was that late on Thanksgiving Eve, as I drifted into sleep in the bedroom of my youth, a familiar hand hesitantly stole across my face to brush the hair from my forehead. Then a kiss, ever so gently, touched my brow.
In my memory, for the thousandth time, I recalled the night my surly young voice complained: Don"t do that anymore your hands are too rough! Catching Mom"s hand in hand, I blurted out how sorry I was for that night. I thought she"d remember, as I did. But Mom didn"t know what I was talking about. She had forgotten and forgiven long ago.
That night, I fell asleep with a new appreciation for my gentle mother and her caring hands. And the guilt I had carried around for so long was nowhere to be found.
英语经典美文阅读 篇3
People need homes: children assume their parents" place as home; boarders call school home on weekdays; married couples work together to build new homes; and travelers have no place to call home , at least for a few nights.
So how about people who have to travel for extended periods of time? Don t they have the right to a home? Of course they do.
Some regular travelers take their own belongings: like bed sheets, pillowcases and family photos to make them feel like home no matter where they are; some stay for long periods in the same hotel and as a result become very familiar with service and attendants; others may simply put some flowers by the hotel window to make things more homely. Furthermore, driving a camping car during one s travels and sleeping in the vehicle at night is just like home -- only mobile!
And how about maintaining relationships while in transit? Some keep contact with their friends via internet; some send letters and postcards, or even photos; others may just call and say hi, just to let their friends know that they"re still alive and well. People find ways to keep in touch. Making friends on the way helps travelers feel more or less at home. Backpackers in youth hostels may become very good friends, even closer than siblings.
Nowadays, fewer people are working in their local towns, so how do they develop a sense of belonging? Whenever we step out of our local boundaries, there is always another home waiting to be found. Wherever we are, with just a little bit of effort and imagination, we can make the place we stay home .
英语经典美文阅读 篇4
We all, at one time or another, have pretended to be a rock star, singing and dancing along to our favorite song. Most of us have done this in the privacy of our own room when we were kids and as adults, in the privacy of our homes. Me? I love to do that when I drive! I turn on the radio, find a song that I can sing along too and pretty soon my arms are in the air and I am moving along to the rhythm. Most of the time, I do this on my way to work.
Yes, that is true. I will be in my nice work clothes, jamming while driving or stopped at a traffic light. I get weird looks from some people and others laugh. Personally, I love to get lost in the rhythm of a song which leads me to share with you the importance of being silly!
The definition for the word silly, according to the dictionary is: stupid, foolish and nonsensical. I know many people do not want to look foolish. So they walk around all serious, which in all honesty, is foolish!
No one is perfect, I repeat: no one is perfect. I don"t care how educated, how thin, how beautiful, how simple, how frugal, how rich, and so on No one is perfect! So why pretend to be something you are not?
Life is so short You never know when this beautiful journey will be over, so why waste a single second on being so full of rigidity? Here is a quote by Souza, that I think says it all and is a great recipe for life:
Dance as though no one is watching you,
Love as though you have never been hurt before,
Sing as though no one can hear you,
Live as though heaven is on earth.
When we were kids, we had no idea of what limitations were and we had no care in the world so we could do things without worrying about how we appeared to others. However, as we grew up, we lost that childlike innocence.
So don"t lose the child that still lives within you. The next time you feel down, go turn on your favorite song, and sing and dance along like there is no tomorrow. Or watch something that makes you laugh. Laughter is the best medicine to whatever ails you and nothing is better than laughing so hard that your tummy hurts. Trust me, you will feel a whole lot better, and who doesn"t want to feel good?
英语经典美文阅读 篇5
You cannot change the laws of physics ... but could physics actually enable us to travel through time?
It might sound crazy, but according to Einstein‘s theories, there‘s no logical reason why time travel isn‘t possible.
Time travel is clearly a trickier proposition than space travel,though. And prior to Einstein, it would have been deemed utterly impossible! That‘s because the old idea about time was that it was like a cosmic metronome keeping a regular and constant beat throughout the universe. And it was thought to move in one direction only .
However, what physicists now know is that time is rather more flexible than the old “ Clockwork Universe” ideas they had it. And it was Albert Einstein who set the cat among the pigeons.
Einstein‘s theories about time and space were revolutionary. He became a celebrity--and not just in scientific circles. It‘s only since he published his theories that scientists have been able to demonstrate that space and time really behave the way he said they did.
In 1971, after Einstein‘s death, two scientists were able to carry out a crucial experiment. They used two atomic clocks, synchronized them, and placed one on a plane, while the other stayed in the same location on Earth. The plane then flew around the world for 80 hours. According to Einstein‘s theory, the clock on the plane would be expected to have lost time, due to being in motion over 80 hours compared to the clock on the ground. When they brought the clocks together and made a comparison, the clock on the plane was indeed a few nanoseconds slower than the other clock. The experiment was replicated in 1996 with advanced technology, and it was proved again--with an even bigger time difference this time. Which proves that not only is time “ warp-able” , but Einstein was arguably the greatest thinker the world has ever seen.
If it were possible, however, it would present some pretty knotty paradoxes... For example, what if someone or something traveled back in time and changed the ensuing future? And have you heard the one about the time traveller who dots back and forward in time and by means of various medical technologies is able to be his own father AND mother?! And besides, if time travel is possible, where are all the people from the future--surely they‘d want to come and meet us poor stranded 21st century beings?
英语经典美文阅读 篇6
"Everything happens for the best," my mother saidwhenever faced disappointment. "If you can carryon, one day something good will happen. And you'llrealize that it wouldn't have happened if not for thatprevious disappointment. " Mother was right, as Idiscovered after graduating from college in 1932. Ihad decided to try for a job in radio, then work myway up to sports announcer. I hitchhiked to Chicagoand knocked on the door of every station -and got turned down every time.
In one studio, a kind lady told me that big stations couldn't risk hiring inexperienced person. "Go out in the sticks and find a small station that'll give you a chance," she said.
I thumbed home to Dixon, Illinois. While there was no radio-announcing jobs in Dixon, myfather said Montgomery Ward had opened a store and wanted a local athlete to manage itssports department. Since Dixon was where I had played high school football, I applied. The jobsounded just right for me. But I wasn't hired.
My disappointment must have shown. "Everything happens for the best," Mom reminded me. Dad offered me the car to hunt for a job. I tried WOC Radio in Davenport, Iowa. The programdirector, a wonderful Scotsman named Peter MacArthur, told me they had already hired anannouncer.
As I left his office, my frustration boiled over. I asked aloud, "How can a fellow get to be asport announcer if he can't get a job in a radio station? "
I was waiting for the elevator when I heard MacArthur calling, "What was that you said aboutsports? Do you know anything about football? " Then he stood me before a microphone andasked me to broadcast an imaginary game.
On my way home, as I have many times since, I thought of my mother's words: "if you carryon, one day something good will happen. Something wouldn't have happened if not for thatprevious disappointment" I often wonder what direction my life might have taken if I'dgotten the job at Montgomery Ward.
英语经典美文阅读 篇7
It is the habit of the poets,and of many who are poets neither in vision nor in faculty,to speak of youth as if it were a period of unshadowed gaiety and pleasure, with no consciousness of responsibility and no sense of care.
The freshness of feeling,the delight in experience,the joy of discovery,the unspent vitality which welcomes every morning as a challenge to one's strength, invest youth with a charm which art is always striving to preserve,and which men who have parted from it remember with a sense of pathos;for the morning of life comes but once, and when it fades something goes which never returns.
There are ample compensations, there are higher joys and deeper insights and relationships; but a magical charm which touches all things and turns them to gold, vanishes with the morning.All this is true of youth,which in many ways symbolises the immortal part of man's nature, and must be,therefore,always beautiful and sacred to him.But it is untrue that the sky of youth has no clouds and the spirit of youth no cares; on the contrary,no period of life is in many ways more painful.
The finer the organisation and the greater the ability,the more difficult and trying the experiences through which the youth passes. George Eliot has pointed out a striking peculiarity of childish grief in the statement that the child has no background of other griefs against which the magnitude of its present sorrow may be measured. While that sorrow lasts it is complete, absolute, and hopeless, because the child has no memory of other trials endured, of other sorrows survived. In this fact about the earliest griefs lies the source also of the pains of youth.
The young man is an undeveloped power;he is largely ignorant of his own capacity,often without inward guidance towards his vocation;he is unadjusted to the society in which he must find a place for himself.He is full of energy and aspiration, but he does not know how to expend the one or realise the other. His soul has wings, but he cannot fly, because, like the eagle, he must have space on the ground before he rises in the air.
英语经典美文阅读 篇8
The sun is shining brightly out of my window. I can feel the sunbeam come straight from my eyes to my heart. But there is no warmth. I’m still really cold.
After the first remedy, I never feel any better. Everyone warned me not to move anywhere. Even a little cut may deprive my life.
“My honey,” Mommy said to me with manful spirit in her eyes. “Please go on, you’re strong enough, you’re brave enough to live on!”
“Don’t worry,” I smiled, “I’m Ok, Mommy, I’ll never give up.” Mommy smiled as return after hearing my words.
But how can I go on? I am the biggest criminal in my family! It’s I who have spent each penny in my family which was made yb my parents for their whole lives. It’s my blood cancer that made my parents become old overnight, but they still have to smile and encourage me though they’re being killed by the much more sorrow than I am. How can I still live in this family? How can I still live in the world?
In fact, we have had no money to pay for the second remedy. I don’t know why I have to be paid so much to keep the little time in my life. It’s really unnecessary.
Severe pain is killing me. I want to stop. I don’t want to be the criminal. I don’t want to leave the world with an empty family and hopeless parents. I don’t want to be the heavy burden of my family of my world in my last days.
I suddenly feel the wall coming to me. All is black. I passed out again. I don’t know how many times I pass out and revive. I hope, I wish this is the last time.
A familiar song comes to my clear mind:
“Mama, you gave life to me,turned a baby into a lady;Mama, all I have to offer was a guarantee of you loving me…
Good-bye is the saddest word I’ve ever heard,Good-bye is the last time I can hold you near.Someday you’ll say that word and I will cry,It will break my heart to hear you say good-bye.Till we meet again, until than good-bye.”
I don’t know if I’m still alive. But I’m sure I could see the drops of tears coming from Mommy’s eyes and she is smiling. She said to me: “ Baby, I know you’re leaving, I know I can’t stop you from leaving me. Take care of yourself whether you’re in the human world or not. I will always- love – you!”
英语经典美文阅读 篇9
Starbucks invades Parisian cafe culture
A form of alien civilisation has finally landed in Paris - unfamiliar green and black signs have appeared on the Avenue de L'Opera.
It is the first Starbucks cafe to boldly go where no Starbucks has gone before, onto potentially hostile French territory.
Its advertising posters on the Champs Elysee announce "Starbucks - a passion pour le cafe".
But is the company aware of the risk it is taking by challenging the very birthplace of cafe society?
"I think every time we come into a new market we do it with a great sense of respect, a great deal of interest in how that cafe society has developed over time," Bill O'Shea of Starbucks says.
"We recognise there is a huge history here of cafe society and we have every confidence we can enjoy, augment and join in that passion."
And he may be right. Despite some sniffiness in the French press, some younger French are expressing their excitement that they will finally be able to visit the kind of cafe they love to watch on the US TV series Friends.
In fact, for some, it is an exotic rarity, far more exciting than the average French cafe.
Melissa, aged 18, says she can hardly wait: "I love Starbucks caramel coffee - it's very good and I like the concept that they're opening in Paris. I think Starbucks will be OK for French people."
An American tourist is equally excited when she spots the sign - this could be just the thing to help her get over the occasional twinge of homesickness.
"I love the French cafes, but Starbucks is so popular in the States and it's become part of American culture and now it's come to France, and that's OK," she said.
But that is the problem for many French, who do not want France to be just like the rest of the world: with standardised disposal cups of coffee - identical in 7,000 branches around the world - even if they are termed handcrafted beverages.
At the traditional cafes, customers worry that the big US coffee house chains could drive out small, family-owned cafes.
Others here think they could come round to the idea of Starbucks, though for them it would never replace the corner cafe or the typical Parisian petit noir coffee .
英语经典美文阅读 篇10
"Can I see my baby?" the happy new mother asked.
When the bundle was nestled in her arms and she moved the fold of cloth to look upon his tiny face, she gasped. The doctor turned quickly and looked out the tall hospital window. The baby had been born without ears.
Time proved that the baby's hearing was perfect. It was only his appearance that was marred. When he rushed home from school one day and flung himself into his mother's arms, she sighed, knowing that his life was to be a succession of heartbreaks.
He blurted out the tragedy. "A boy, a big boy...called me a freak."
He grew up, handsome for his misfortune. A favorite with his fellow students, he might have been class president, but for that. He developed a gift, a talent for literature and music.
"But you might mingle with other young people," his mother reproved him, but felt a kindness in her heart.
The boy's father had a session with the family physician... "Could nothing be done?"
"I believe I could graft on a pair of outer ears, if they could be procured," the doctor decided. Whereupon the search began for a person who would make such a sacrifice for a young man.
Two years went by. One day, his father said to the son, "You're going to the hospital, son. Mother and I have someone who will donate the ears you need. But it's a secret."
The operation was a brilliant success, and a new person emerged. His talents blossomed into genius, and school and college became a series of triumphs.
Later he married and entered the diplomatic service. One day, he asked his father, "Who gave me the ears? Who gave me so much? I could never do enough for him or her."
"I do not believe you could," said the father, "but the agreement was that you are not to know...not yet."
The years kept their profound secret, but the day did come. One of the darkest days that ever pass through a son. He stood with his father over his mother's casket. Slowly, tenderly, the father stretched forth a hand and raised the thick, reddish brown hair to reveal the mother had no outer ears.
"Mother said she was glad she never let her hair be cut," his father whispered gently, "and nobody ever thought mother less beautiful, did they?"
英语经典美文阅读 篇11
I strongly believe that it is rather important to be a good listener. And although I have become a better listener than I was ten years ago, I have to admit I'm still only an adequate1 listener.
Effective listening is more than simply avoiding the bad habit of interrupting others while they are speaking or finishing their sentences. It's being content to listen to the entire thought of someone rather than waiting impatiently for your chance to respond. In some ways, the way we fail to listen is symbolic of the way we live. We often treat communication as if it were a race. It's almost like our goal is to have no time gaps between the conclusion of the sentence of the person we are speaking with and the beginning of our own. My wife and I were recently at a cafe having lunch, eavesdropping on the conversations around us. It seemed that no one was really listening to one another, instead they were taking turns not listening to one another.I asked my wife if I still did the same thing. With a smile on her face she said," Only sometimes." Slowing down your responses and becoming a better listener aids you in becoming a more peaceful person. It takes pressure from you. If you think about it, you'll notice that it takes an enormous amount of energy and is very stressful to be sitting at the edge of your seat trying to guess what the person in front of you (or on the telephone) is going to say so that you can fire8 back your response. But as you wait for the person you are communicating with to finish, as you simply listen more intently to what is being said, you'll notice that the pressure you feel is off. You'll immediately feel more relaxed, and so will the people you are talking to.They will feel safe in slowing down their own responses because they won't feel in competition with you for " air time " ! Not only will becoming a better listener make you a more patient person, it will also enhance the quality of your relationships. Everyone loves to talk to someone who truly listens to what they are saying.
英语经典美文阅读 篇12
"On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep-but forever.
"An immeasurable loss has been sustained both by the militant proletariat of Europe and America, and by historical science, in the death of this man. The gap that has been left by the departure of this mighty spirit will soon enough make itself felt.
"Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means of subsistence and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.
"But that is not all. Marx also discovered the special law of motion governing the present-day capitalist mode of production and the bourgeois society that this mode of production has created. The discovery of surplus value suddenly threw light on the problem, in trying to solve which all previous investigations, of both bourgeois economists and socialist critics, had been groping in the dark.
"Two such discoveries would be enough for one lifetime. Happy the man to whom it is granted to make even one such discovery. But in every single field which Marx investigated -- and he investigated very many fields, none of them superficially -- in every field, even in that of mathematics, he made independent discoveries.
英语经典美文阅读 篇13
To respect my work, my associates and myself. To be honest and fair with them as I expect them to be honest and fair with me. To be a man whose word carries weight. To be a booster, not a knocker; a pusher, not a kicker; a motor, not a clog.
To base my expectations of reward on a solid foundation of service rendered; to be willing to pay the price of success in honest effort. To look upon my work as opportunity, to be seized with joy and made the most of, and not as painful drudgery to be reluctantly endured.
To remember that success lies within myself; in my own brain, my own ambition, my own courage and determination. To expect difficulties and force my way through them, to turn hard experiences into capital for future struggles.
To interest my heart and soul in my work, and aspire to the highest efficiency in the achievement of results. To be patiently receptive of just criticism and profit from its teaching. To treat equals and superiors with respect, and subordinates with kindly encouragement.
To make a study of my business duties; to know my work from the ground up. To mix brains with my efforts and use system and method in all I undertake. To find time to do everything needful by never letting time find me or my subordinates doing nothing. To hoard days as a miser does dollars, to make every hour bring me dividends in specific results accomplished. To steer clear of dissipation and guard my health of body and peace of mind as my most precious stock in trade.
Finally, to take a good grip on the joy of life; to play the game like a gentleman; to fight against nothing so hard as my own weakness, and endeavor to grow in business capacity, and as a man, with the passage of every day of time.
英语经典美文阅读 篇14
Antique shops exert a peculiar fascination on a great many people. The more expensive kind of antique shop where rare objects are beautifully displayed in glass cases to keep them free from dust is usually a forbidding place. But no one has to muster up courage to enter a less pretentious antique shop. There is always hope that in its labyrinth of musty, dark, disordered rooms a real rarity will be found amongst the piles of assorted junk that litter the floors.
No one discovers a rarity by chance. A truly dedicated searcher for art treasures must have patience, and above all, the ability to recognize the worth of something when he sees it. To do this, he must be at least as knowledgeable as the dealer. Like a scientist bent on making a discovery, he must cherish the hope that one day he will be amply rewarded.
My old friend, Frank Halliday, is just such a person. He has often described to me how he picked up a masterpiece for a mere &5. One Saturday morning, Frank visited an antique shop in my neighbourhood. As he had never been there before, he found a great deal to interest him. The morning passed rapidly and Frank was about to leave when he noticed a large packing-case lying on the floor. The dealer told him that it had just come in, but that he could not be bothered to open it. Frank begged him to do so and the dealer reluctantly prised it open. The contents were disappointing. Apart from an interesting-looking carved dagger, the box was full of crockery, much of it broken. Frank gently lifted the crockery out of the box and suddenly noticed a miniature Painting at the bottom of the packing-case. As its composition and line reminded him of an Italian painting he knew well, he decided to buy it. Glancing at it briefly, the dealer told him that it was worth &5. Frank could hardly conceal his excitement, for he knew that he had made a real discovery. The tiny painting proved to be an unknown masterpiece by Correggio and was worth thousands of pounds.
英语经典美文阅读 篇15
It is the habit of the poets, and of many who are poets neither in vision nor in faculty, to speak of youth as if it were a period of unshadowed gaiety and pleasure, with no consciousness of responsibility and no sense of care.
The freshness of feeling, the delight in experience, the joy of discovery, the unspent vitality which welcomes every morning as a challenge to one's strength, invest youth with a charm which art is always striving to preserve, and which men who have parted from it remember with a sense of pathos; for the morning of life comes but once, and when it fades something goes which never returns. There are ample compensations, there are higher joys and deeper insights and relationships; but a magical charm which touches all things and turns them to gold, vanishes with the morning. All this is true of youth, which in many ways symbolises the immortal part of man's nature, and must be, therefore, always beautiful and sacred to him. But it is untrue that the sky of youth has no clouds and the spirit of youth no cares; on the contrary, no period of life is in many ways more painful.
The finer the organisation and the greater the ability, the more difficult and trying the experiences through which the youth passes. George Eliot has pointed out a striking peculiarity of childish grief in the statement that the child has no background of other griefs against which the magnitude of its present sorrow may be measured. While that sorrow lasts it is complete, absolute, and hopeless, because the child has no memory of other trials endured, of other sorrows survived. In this fact about the earliest griefs lies the source also of the pains of youth. The young man is an undeveloped power; he is largely ignorant of his own capacity, often without inward guidance towards his vocation; he is unadjusted to the society in which he must find a place for himself.
He is full of energy and aspiration, but he does not know how to expend the one or realise the other. His soul has wings, but he cannot fly, because, like the eagle, he must have space on the ground before he rises in the air.
英语经典美文阅读 篇16
It seems to me a very difficult thing to put into words the beliefs we hold and what they make you do in your life. I think I was fortunate because I grew up in a family where there was a very deep religious feeling. I don’t think it was spoken of a great deal. It was more or less taken for granted that everybody held certain beliefs and needed certain reinforcements of their own strength and that that came through your belief in God and your knowledge of prayer.
But as I grew older I questioned a great many of the things that I knew very well my grandmother who had brought me up had taken for granted. And I think I might have been a quite difficult person to live with if it hadn’t been for the fact that my husband once said it didn’t do you any harm to learn those things, so why not let your children learn them? When they grow up they’ll think things out for themselves.
And that gave me a feeling that perhaps that’s what we all must do-think out for ourselves what we could believe and how we could live by it. And so I came to the conclusion that you had to use this life to develop the very best that you could develop.
I don’t know whether I believe in a future life. I believe that all that you go through here must have some value, therefore there must be some reason. And there must be some “going on.” How exactly that happens I’ve never been able to decide. There is a future-that I’m sure of. But how, that I don’t know. And I came to feel that it didn’t really matter very much because whatever the future held you’d have to face it when you came to it, just as whatever life holds you have to face it exactly the same way. And the important thing was that you never let down doing the best that you were able to do-it might be poor because you might not have very much within you to give, or to help other people with, or to live your life with. But as long as you did the very best that you were able to do, then that was what you were put here to do and that was what you were accomplishing by being here.
And so I have tried to follow that out-and not to worry about the future or what was going to happen. I think I am pretty much of a fatalist. You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.
英语经典美文阅读 篇17
One day, the time management expert lectured to a group of business school students.
He made a demonstration at the scene, which left a lasting impression on the students.
Standing in front of students with high iqs, he said, let's take a quiz. Take out a one-gallon jar and set it on the table in front of him. Then he took out a bunch of fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them in a jar. When the jar was over the top of the jar and no more rocks could fit in, he asked, "is the jar full?" All students should say: "full!" . The time management expert replied, "really?" He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. He poured some of the gravel in, and tapped the glass bottle wall to fill the gap between the stones. "Is the jar full now? "He asked the second time. But this time the students understood, "probably not," one student said. "Good! Experts say. He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of sand. The sand is filled with all the gaps between the rock and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "is this jar full?" "No! "Shouted the students. Once again he said, "good! Then he took a pitcher of water and poured it into the jar until it was flat. Looking up at the students, he asked, "what is the point of this illustration?" One eager student raised his hand and said, "no matter how tight your schedule is, if you work hard, you can do more!" "No!" The time management expert said, "that's not what it really means. This example tells us that if you didn't blow up the rock first, you couldn't put it in the bottle anymore. So, what are the big rocks in your life? Spend time with the people you love, your beliefs, education, dreams? Remember to deal with these big rocks first, otherwise, you can't do it all your life!
So tonight, perhaps this morning, you are reading this essay, and you have tried to ask yourself this question: what is the "big rock" in my life? Then, please put them in the bottle of your life first. It is better to be busy with dreams than to lose your dreams by being busy!
英语经典美文阅读 篇18
Much meaning can be conveyed, clearly, with our eyes, so it is often said that eyes can speak.
Do you have such kind of experience? In a bus you may look at stranger, but not too long. And if he is sensing that he is being stared at, he may feel uncomfortable.
The same in daily life. If you are looked at for more than necessary, you will look at yourself up and down, to see if there is anything wrong with you. If nothing goes wrong, you will feel angry toward other’s stare with you that way. Eyes do speak, right?
Looking too long at someone may seem to be rude and aggressive. But things are different when it comes to stare at the opposite sex. If a man glances at a woman for more than 10 seconds and refuses to avert his gaze, his intentions are obvious, that is, he wishes to attract her attention, to make her understand that he is admiring her.
However, the normal eye contact for two people engaged in conversation is that the speaker will only look at the listener from time to time, in order to make sure that the listener does pay attention to what the former is speaking, to tell him that he is attentive.
If a speaker looks at you continuously when speaking, as if he tries to dominate you, you will feel disconcerted. A poor liar usually exposes himself by looking too long at the victim, since he believes in the false idea that to look straight in the eye is a sign of honest communication. Quite the contrary.
In fact, continuous eye contact is confined to lovers only, who will enjoy looking at each other tenderly for a long time, to show affection that words cannot express.
Evidently, eye contact should be done according to the relationship between two people and the specific situation.
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