二階堂真红
对于美文,品之终身受益,丰富思想,升华境界;读之甘之如饴,滋养心灵,净化灵魂。下面是我带来的简单英文美文,欢迎阅读!
给年轻朋友的一封信Letter to a Young Friend
My dear friend
亲爱的朋友
I know of no Medicine fit to diminish the violent natural inclination you mention; and if I did, I think I should not communicate it to you. Marriage is the proper Remedy. It is the most natural State of man, and therefore the state in which you will find solid Happiness.Your Reason against entering into it at present appears to be not well founded. The Circumstantial Advantages you have in view by Postponing it, are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with the Thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the Man and Woman united that makes the complete human Being, Separate she wants his force of Body and Strength of Reason; he her Softness, Sensibility and acute Discernment. Together they are most likely to succeed in the World. A single man has not nearly the value he would have in that State of Union. He is an incomplete Animal.He resembles the odd Half of a Pair of Scissors.
我知道没有药物能够消除你们所提到的那种疯狂的自然倾向;即使我知道,我想我也不该告诉你.婚姻是适当的药物。它是人类最本能的状态, 因此是一种最幸福的生活状态。你拒绝现在进入婚姻殿堂的理由显的不够充分.你认为推迟婚姻可能存在好处,不仅不一定实现,而且,那些利益跟婚姻本身以及婚后的安定相比起来就微不足道了。男人和女人只有联合起来才能组成完整的人.女人缺乏男人的力量和周密的推理,而男人缺乏女人的温柔、感性和敏锐的洞察力。因此当男人和女人联合起来。就能够无往不胜。单身和离婚生活的男男女女不可能具有婚姻生活中的价值,是一种不完善的动物。他简直好比半把剪刀--孤掌难鸣。
If you get a prudent, health wife, your Industry in your Profession, with her good Economy, will be a Fortune sufficient.
如果你拥有一位健康而谨慎的妻子,你的辛勤工作,加上她的勤俭节约,必定会创造充足的财富。
Your Affectionate Friend
您真挚的朋友
坦诚Frankness
You must study to be frank with the world:frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do, on every occasion. If a friend asks a favor, you should grant it, if it is reasonable; if not, tell him plainly why you cannot. You would wrong him and wrong yourself by equivocation of any kind.
在世间必须学会以真诚示人:率真乃是诚实与勇敢之子。无论在何种场合,都应该道出自己的真实想法。如果朋友对你有所求,对于合情合理之请,应该欣然同意;不然,应该明明白白地告诉朋友拒绝的理由。任何模棱两可的话语将会让别人误解,也会使自己蒙受冤屈。
Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one. The man who requires you to do so is dearly purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly but firmly with all your classmates. You will find it the policy which wears best. Above all, do not appear to others what you are not.
千万不要为了结交朋友或者挽留友情而做错一事。对你有这种要求的人也会付出沉重的代价。与同学真心相对,绝不背叛。你将发现这是最有效用的准则。总之,要以真实面目示人。
If you have any fault to find with any one, tell him, not others, of what you complain. There is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to do one thing before a man's face and another behind his back. We should say and do nothing to the injury of any one. It is not only a matter of principle, but also the path of peace and hornor.
如果发现某人身有瑕疵,直接告诉他你的意见,而不是诉之他人。人前一套,背后又是一套,没有什么比这更加危机四伏。任何有损他人的言语或者事情我们都应该避免。这不仅是一种做人的原则,而且也是通向平和的人际关系、获得他人尊敬之道。
墓园沉思Thoughts in a grave yard
When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, even inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents of themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hunderd years ago, I consider that great when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.
当我瞻仰伟人的坟墓,心中所有的嫉妒顿时烟消云散;当我读到伟人的悼文,所有的非分之想顷刻消失殆尽;当我遇见在墓碑旁悲痛欲绝的父母亲,我的心中也满怀同情;当我看到那些父母亲自己的坟墓,我不禁感慨:既然我们很快都要追随逝者的脚步,悲伤又有何用。当我看到国王与那些将他们废黜的人躺在一起,当我想到那些争斗一生的智者,或是那些通过竞争和争执将世界分裂的圣人们被后人并排葬在一起,我对人类的那些微不足道的竞争、内讧和争论感到震惊和悲伤。当我看到一些坟墓上的日期,有的死于昨日,而有的死于六百年前,我不禁想到,有那么一天我们都会在同一个时代同时出现在世人眼前。
淘气lulu
摘抄包括日常意义上的摘抄与教学意义上的摘抄。根据是否满足基本要求,摘抄的价值有正面与负面之分。摘抄与习作的关系主要体现在摘抄提供的知识、素材、语言材料积累以及篇章写法熟识等方面对习作的价值。我精心收集了超经典英语美文,供大家欣赏学习!
Watch the world go by
I was sitting outside my new home yesterday (we just moved last week, and we love the new place), watching the world go by.
There were people in cars, in a hurry to get to their next appointment. There were birds flying by, insects just as busy as the people in cars, plants and weeds thriving in the humid(潮湿的) Guam climate.
Inside the house, my children were also busy, as ever, making a mess of the house (which my wife and I would soon clean up), getting into things, their natural curiosity overpowering our previous pleas for them not to play with lotion(洗液,洗涤剂) or take things apart.
The sky was slightly overcast and there was a cool breeze, quite strong and pleasant actually.
It's not often that most of us just sit quietly, and allow the world to pass us by.
Why not?
What is so important that it can't wait until later? What email must be answered right this moment? Do we really need to read all those articles online, all those messages from others, all those newspapers and magazines? Do we need to have the television and radio and Internet on all the time?
Is life passing us by as we keep our minds super-busy? Are we missing out on the beautiful world around us as we constantly think about the future - what we need to do, our anxieties about what might happen - and the past - what we did wrong, what someone else did to us, what we said, what should have happened?
When was the last time you just sat, and observed? Why not do it today?
生命中的片段
When he told me he was leaving I felt like a vase which has just smashed. There were pieces of me all over the tidy, tan(棕褐色) tiles. He kept talking, telling me why he was leaving, explaining it was for the best, I could do better, it was his fault and not mine. I had heard it before many times and yet somehow was still not immune; perhaps one did not become immune to such felony(重罪).
He left and I tried to get on with my life. I filled the kettle and put it on to boil, I took out my old red mug and filled it with coffee watching as each coffee granule(颗粒) slipped in to the bone china. That was what my life had been like, endless omissions of coffee granules, somehow never managing to make that cup of coffee.
Somehow when the kettle piped its finishing warning I pretended not to hear it. That's what Mike's leaving had been like, sudden and with an awful finality. I would rather just wallow in uncertainty than have things finished. I laughed at myself. Imagine getting all philosophical and sentimental about a mug of coffee. I must be getting old.
And yet it was a young woman who stared back at me from the mirror. A young woman full of promise and hope, a young woman with bright eyes and full lips just waiting to take on the world. I never loved Mike anyway. Besides there are more important things. More important than love, I insist to myself firmly. The lid goes back on the coffee just like closure on the whole Mike experience.
He doesn't haunt my dreams as I feared that night. Instead I am flying far across fields and woods, looking down on those below me. Suddenly I fall to the ground and it is only when I wake up that I realize I was shot by a hunter, brought down by the burden of not the bullet but the soul of the man who shot it. I realize later, with some degree of understanding, that Mike was the hunter holding me down and I am the bird that longs to fly. The next night my dream is similar to the previous nights, but without the hunter. I fly free until I meet another bird who flies with me in perfect harmony. I realize with some relief that there is a bird out there for me, there is another person, not necessarily a lover perhaps just a friend, but there is someone out there who is my soul mate. I think about being a broken vase again and realize that I have glued myself back together, what Mike has is merely a little part of my time in earth, a little understanding of my physical being. He has only, a little piece of me.
谁能拒绝12次微笑呢?
A passenger told an air hostess that he needed a cup of water to take his medicine when the plane just took off. She told him that she would bring him the water in ten minutes.
Thirty minutes later, when the passenger's ring for service sounded, the air hostess flew in a flurry. She was kept so busy that she forgot to deliver him the water. As a result, the passenger was held up to take his medicine. She hurried over to him with a cup of water, but he refused it.
In the following hours on the flight, each time the stewardess passed be the passenger she would ask him with a smile whether he needed help or not. But the passenger never paid heed to(注意) her.
When he was going to get off the plane, the passenger asked the stewardess to hand him the passengers' booklet. She was very sad. She knew that he would write down sharp words, but with a smile she handed it to him.
Off the plane, she opened the booklet, and cracked a smile(展颜微笑), for the passenger put it, "On the flight, you asked me whether I need help or not for twelve times in all. How can I refuse your twelve sincere smiles?"
That's right! Who can refuse your twelve sincere smiles from a person?