英语高级短文摘抄

阅读经典美文是拓宽思维、增长见识、丰富情感、涵养素质的最有效手段。我整理了高中英语美文，欢迎阅读!

肯尼迪总统就职演说摘录

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price，bear any burden,

告知诸国，不论是希望我们好或不好的国家，我们都会不惜任何代价，

meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.

承担任何重任，不辞艰辛地支持友邦，对抗敌国，以确保自由的存续与成功。

To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends.

对于那些在文化上或精神上与我们同源的旧盟邦，我们保证会以挚友的忠贞来对待他们。

United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures.

我们若团结合作，则从事种种的合作计划几乎是无所不能。

Divided, there is little we can do, for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.

但若分裂，我们将一筹莫展，因为如果我们自己由于意见分歧而分裂，便不敢面对强敌。

To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free,

至于那些新兴国家，我们则欢迎他们加入自由国家的行列。

we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny.

我们誓言殖民统治结束后不会有更残酷的暴政来取代。

We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view.

我们并不期望这些新兴的国家会永远支持我们的观点。

But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom-and to remember that，

但是我们永远希望他们能固守属于自己的自由—而且也希望我们自己能永远记得，

in the past, those who foolishly sought to find power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.

在过去，愚昧地试图骑着虎背仗势求权的人结果反入虎腹。

To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery,

对于那些居住在茅屋与村落里正奋力挣脱集体悲惨命运的另一半地球民族，

we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required.

只要他们需要，不管到何年何月，我们保证将尽全力帮助他们自救。

Increasing Confidence

Robert Stuberg

The world is changing rapidly and most people are very anxious about it. In fact, I think it might even be stronger and more accurate to say that most people are downright fearful of what they see going on around them.

Technological change and innovation are completely altering many aspects of our lives and it doesn’t stop there. Economic changes, social changes, scientific changes, political changes… the list is endless. However, the big question we all face is how are we going to respond to these changes?

While the specific answers about what to do take time and thought to uncover, the best way to approach the future and all of the changes it will bring can be summed up in one word: Confidence.

Personal confidence is one of the greatest assets we all possess. Certainly some people seem to have much more of it than others but I believe that confidence is a skill that we can all develop. In some ways, it is undoubtedly the most important skill we can develop.

With confidence, all things are within the realm of possibility. Without confidence, even the smallest challenges seem insurmountable.

What I find fascinating is that people with confidence always seem to end up on top. They seem to overcome the obstacles that stand in their way. It’s as if problems and challenges run from the person who has confidence.

I think what’s so difficult for most people is the belief that confidence has to be based on having a specific solution at hand but that’s just not true.

What we all respect and admire is the person who can stand up against overwhelming difficulties and persevere without an answer.

Here’s the secret that most people never get. Life’s challenges are no match for the person with unstoppable confidence. While the problems or challenges might seem too big to be overcome, the person with confidence always finds a way to win regardless of the circumstances.

Ultimately, life’s challenges run and hide from the person that maintains confidence.

This is hard lesson to learn. The problems of life seem so big and scary and we often think of ourselves as so small and fragile. But that’s not the way it is. That’s the illusion that most people by into, but it’s not the truth.

The truth is that we are bigger than anything that can ever happen to us in life. We have the power and ability to overcome any obstacle in our path. And the most important tool we possess is personal confidence, believing in your ability to overcome the current challenge just like we have done so many times in the past.

Whatever challenge is currently in your life, know that it’s there to help you grow and expand. Use the problems you encounter to help you build your personal confidence. Remember, you wouldn’t have the problem if you didn’t have the power to overcome it. Expanding your personal confidence will allow you to take on whatever you need to in order to fulfill your personal mission.

A Reporter Quotes His Sources

It’s rather difficult in these noisy, confusing, nerve-racking days to achieve the peace of mind in which to pause for a moment to reflect on what you believe in. There’s so little time and opportunity to give it much thought—though it is the thing we live by; and without it, without beliefs, human existence today would hardly be bearable.

My own view of life, like everyone else’s, is conditioned by personal experience. In my own case, there were two experiences, in particular, which helped to shape my beliefs: years of life and work under a totalitarian regime, and a glimpse of war.

Living in a totalitarian land taught me to value highly—and fiercely—the very things the dictators denied: tolerance, respect for others and, above all, the freedom of the human spirit.

A glimpse of war filled me with wonder not only at man’s courage and capacity for self-sacrifice, but at his stubborn, marvelous will to preserve, to endure, to prevail—amidst the most incredible savagery and suffering. When you saw people—civilians—who where bombed out, or who, worse, had been hounded in the concentration camps or worked to a frazzle in the slave-labor gangs—when you saw them come out of these ordeals of horror and torture, still intact as human beings, with a will to go on, with a faith still in themselves, in their fellow man, and in God, you realized that man was indestructible. You appreciated, too, that despite the corruption and cruelty of life, man somehow managed to retain great virtues: love, honor, courage, self-sacrifice, compassion.

It filled you with a certain pride just to be a member of the human race. It renewed your belief in your fellow men.

Of course, there are many days (in this Age of Anxiety) when a human being feels awfully low and discouraged. I myself find consolation at such moments by two means: trying to develop a sense of history, and renewing the quest for inner life.

I go back, for example, to reading Plutarch. He reminds you that even in the golden days of Greece and Rome, from which so much that is splendid in our own civilization derives, there was a great deal of what we find so loathsome in life today: war, strife, corruption, treason, double-crossing, intolerance, tyranny, rabble-rousing. Reading history thus gives you perspective. It enables you to see your troubles relatively. You don’t take them so seriously then.

Finally, I find that most true happiness comes from one’s inner life; from the disposition of the mind and soul. Admittedly, a good inner life is difficult to achieve, especially in these trying times. It takes reflection and contemplation. And self-discipline. One must be honest with oneself, and that’s not easy. (You have to have patience and understanding. And, when you can, seek God.)

But the reward of having an inner life, which no outside storm or evil turn of fortune can touch, is, it seems to me, a very great one.

美文是一种提倡写真性情成大境界的 散文 体裁, 美文写作中的审美和品味是为了培养学生根据散文的文学特质,真切自如地表达自己思想情感的教学策略。我精心收集了 高三英语 美文，供大家欣赏学习!高三英语美文：Care your dream 呵护你的梦想 My dream ended when I was born. Although I never knew it then, I just held on to something that would never come to pass. Dreams really do exist. But in the morning when you wake up, they are remembered just as a dream. That is what happened to me. I always have the dream to dance like a beautiful ballerina twirling around and around and hearing people applaud for me. When I was young, I would twirling around and around in the fields of wildflowers that grew in my backyard. For hours I would dance as if people were watching me. I would dance so fast that I would forget where I was, until I would hear sounds that reminded me of where I really was. I thought that if I twirled faster everything would disappear and I would wake up in a new place. Reality woke me up when I heard a voice saying, "I don't know why you bother trying to dance. Ballerinas are pretty, slender little girls. Besides, you don't have the talent to even be a ballerina." I remember how those words paralyzed every feeling in my body. I feel to the ground and wept for hours. We lived in the country by a nearby lake and I would sometimes go there to hide. My parents were never home anyway and I did not like to be at home where I could hear the walls talking of pain. When they were home, my mother just yelled and criticized because nothing was ever perfect in her life. She dreamed of a different life but ended up living in a country far away from the city where she believed her dreams would have come true. I enjoyed hanging out by the water. I would sit there for hours and stare at my reflection. There I was, looked nothing like a pretty ballerina dancer. Reflections don't lie. Once the waves would come, my reflection was gone. Washed away just like my dream to dance. I sat there staring at the water, hoping that my reflection would reappear and be different. As I grew older, I began to realize that the reason my dream was even born in the first place, was because it was something that was inside of me. The dream I had was never nurtured and cared for, so it slowly died. It's not that I wanted it to die, but I allowed it to die the day I started listening to the words, "You can't do it." When I finally woke up from many years of dreaming, I realized that you can't settle for dancing in the wildflowers, you have to move on to the platform. I still go to the lake sometimes and sit there. Looking at my reflection is different now too. When I was young, I looked at how others saw me, now that I am older and wiser; I look at how God sees me. by Vanessa Sanchez 高三英语美文：Packaging A Person 人的包装 A person, like a commodity, needs packaging. But going too far is absolutely undesirable. A little exaggeration, however, does no harm when it shows the person's unique qualities to their advantage. To display personal charm in a casual and natural way, it is important for one to have a clear knowledge of oneself. A master packager knows how to integrate art and nature without any traces of embellishment, so that the person so packaged is no commodity but a human being, lively and lovely. A young person, especially a female, radiant with beauty and full of life, has all the favor granted by God. Any attempt to make up would be self-defeating. Youth, however, comes and goes in a moment of doze. Packaging for the middle-aged is primarily to conceal the furrows ploughed by time. If you still enjoy life's exuberance enough to retain self-confidence and pursue pioneering work, you are unique in your natural qualities, and your charm and grace will remain. Elderly people are beautiful if their river of life has been, through plains, mountains and jungles, running its course as it should. You have really lived your life which now arrives at a complacent stage of serenity indifferent to fame or wealth. There is no need to resort to hair-dyeing-the snow-capped mountain is itself a beautiful scene of fairyland. Let your looks change from young to old synchronizing with the natural ageing process so as to keep in harmony with nature, for harmony itself is beauty, while the other way round will only end in unpleasantness. To be in the elder's company is like reading a thick book of de luxe edition that fascinates one so much as to be reluctant to part with. As long as one finds where one stands, one knows how to package oneself, just as a commodity establishes its brand by the right packaging. [参考译文] 人如商品要包装，但切忌过分包装。夸张包装，要善于展示个性的独特品质。在随意与自然中表现人的个性美，重要的是认识自己，包装的高手在于不留痕迹，外在的一切应与自身浑然一体，这时你不再是商品，而是活生生的人。 青年有着充盈的生命的底气，她亮丽诱人，这是上帝赐予的神采，任何涂抹都是多余的败笔，青春是个打个盹就过去的东西。中年的包装主要是修复岁月的磨损，如果中年的生命依然有开拓丰满与自信，便会成年人，如果你生命的河流正常地流过，流过了平原高山和丛林，那么你是美的。你的美充满了安详与淡泊，因为你真正地生活过。老年人不要去染白发，老人的白发像高山的积雪，有种仙境之美。人该年轻时就年轻，该年老时就年老，这是与自然同步，这就是和谐。和谐就是美，反之就是丑。和老年人在一起就像读一本厚厚的精装书，魅力无穷，令人爱不释手。 高三英语美文：The Blanket 一床双人毛毯 The BlanketBy Floyd Dell Floyd Dell, born June 28, 1887, Barry, Ill., U.S. died July 23, 1969, Bethesda, Md. novelist and radical journalist whose fiction examined the changing mores in sex and politics among American bohemians before and after World War I. A precocious poet, Dell grew up in an impoverished family and left high school at age 16 to work in a factory. Moving to Chicago in 1908, he worked as a newspaperman and soon was a leader of the city's advanced literary movement. He became assistant editor of the Friday Literary Review of the Evening Post in 1909 and editor in 1911, making it one of the most noted American literary supplements. As a critic, he furthered the careers of Sherwood Anderson and Theodore Dreiser. A socialist since his youth, he moved to New York in 1914 and was associate editor of the left-wing The Masses until 1917. Dell was on the staff of The Liberator, which succeeded The Masses, from 1918 to 1924. His first and best novel, the largely autobiographical Moon-Calf, appeared in 1920, and its sequel, The Briary-Bush, in 1921. Homecoming, an autobiography taking him to his 35th year, was published in 1933. His other novels on life among the unconventional include Janet March (1923), Runaway (1925), and Love in Greenwich Village (1926). His nonfiction includes Were You Ever a Child? (1919), on child-rearing; the biography Upton Sinclair: A Study in Social Protest (1927); and Love in the Machine Age (1930), which presented his views on sex. Little Accident, a play written with Thomas Mitchell and based on Dell's novel An Unmarried Father (1927), was successfully produced in 1928. Dell joined the Federal Writers Project and moved to Washington, D.C., in the late 1930s as an official for the project. He continued in government work after the project ended, until his retirement in 1947.Petey hadn’t really believed that Dad would be doing It — sending Granddad away. “Away” was what they were calling it.Not until now could he believe it of his father. But here was the blanket that Dad had bought for Granddad, and in the morning he’d be going away. This was the last evening they’d be having together. Dad was off seeing that girl he was to marry. He would not be back till late, so Petey and Granddad could sit up and talk. It was a fine September night, with a silver moon riding high. They washed up the supper dishes and then took their chairs out onto the porch. “I’ll get my fiddle,” said the old man, “and play you some of the old tunes.” But instead of the fiddle he brought out the blanket. It was a big double blanket, red with black stripes. “Now, isn’t that a fine blanket!” said the old man, smoothing it over his knees. “And isn’t your father a kind man to be giving the old fellow a blanket like that to go away with? It cost something, it did—look at the wool of it! There’ll be few blankets there the equal of this one!” It was like Granddad to be saying that. He was trying to make it easier. He had pretended all along that he wanted to go away to the great brick building—the government place. There he’d be with so many other old fellows, having the best of everything. . . . But Petey hadn’t believed Dad would really do it, not until this night when he brought home the blanket. “Oh, yes, it’s a fine blanket,” said Petey. He got up and went into the house. He wasn’t the kind to cry and, besides, he was too old for that. He’d just gone in to fetch Granddad’s fiddle. The blanket slid to the floor as the old man took the fiddle and stood up. He tuned up for a minute, and then said, “This is one you’ll like to remember.” Petey sat and looked out over the gully. Dad would marry that girl. Yes, that girl who had kissed Petey and fussed over him, saying she’d try to be a good mother to him, and all. . . . The tune stopped suddenly. Granddad said, “It’s a fine girl your father’s going to marry. He’ll be feeling young again with a pretty wife like that. And what would an old fellow like me be doing around their house, getting in the way? An old nuisance, what with my talks of aches and pains. It’s best that I go away, like I’m doing. One more tune or two, and then we’ll be going to sleep. I’ll pack up my blanket in the morning.” They didn’t hear the two people coming down the path. Dad had one arm around the girl, whose bright face was like a doll’s. But they heard her when she laughed, right close by the porch. Dad didn’t say anything, but the girl came forward and spoke to Granddad prettily: “I won’t be here when you leave in the morning, so I came over to say good-bye.” “It’s kind of you,” said Granddad, with his eyes cast down. Then, seeing the blanket at his feet, he stooped to pick it up. “And will you look at this,” he said. “The fine blanket my son has given me to go away with.”