英语美文背诵10篇

2012级三级、二级学生背诵文选10篇

1. The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost (1874–1963)

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

2. Gettysburg Address

Abraham Lincoln(1809 –1865)

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now, we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation

might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us---that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

3. The value of time

Robert William Service(1874-1968)

"Time," says the proverb, "is money". This means that every moment well-spent may put some money into our pockets. If our time is usefully employed, it will either turn out some useful and important piece of work which will fetch its price in the market, or it will add to our experience and increase our capacities so as to enable us to earn money when the proper opportunity comes. There can thus be no doubt that time is convertible into money. Let those, who think nothing of wasting time, remember this; let them remember that an hour misspent is equivalent to the loss of a bank-note; and that an hour utilized is tantamount to so much silver or gold; and then they will probably think twice before they give their consent to the loss of any part of their time.

Moreover, our life is nothing more than our time. To kill time is therefore a form of suicide. We are shocked when we think of death, and we spare no pains, no trouble, and no expense to preserve life. But we are too often indifferent to the loss of an hour or of a day, forgetting that our life is the sum total of the days and of the hours we live.

A day or an hour wasted is therefore so much life forfeited. Let us bear this mind, and waste of time will appear to us in the light of a crime as culpable as suicide itself. There is a third consideration which will also tend to warn us against loss of time. Our life is a brief span measuring some sixty or seventy years in all, but nearly one third of this has to be spent in sleep; some years have to be spent over our meals; some over dressing and undressing; some in making journeys on land and voyages by sea; some in merry-making; either on our account or for the sake of others; some in celebrating religious and social festivities; some in watching over the sick-beds of our nearest and dearest relatives. Now if all these years were to be deducted from the term over which

our life extends, we shall find about twenty or thirty years at our disposal for active work. Whoever remembers this can never willingly waste a single moment of his life.

All time is precious; but the time of our childhood and of our youth is more precious than any other portion of our existence. For those are the periods when alone we can acquire knowledge and develop our capacities. If we allow these morning hours of life to slip away, we shall never be able to recoup the loss. As we grow older, our power of acquisition gets blunted, so that the art or science which is not acquired in childhood or youth will never be acquired at all. Just as money laid out at interest doubles and trebles itself in time, so the precious hours of childhood and youth, if properly used, will yield us incalculable advantages. ―Every moment you lose,‖ says Lord Chesterfield,‖ is so much character and advantage lost; as on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully is so much time wisely laid out at prodigious interest.‖

A proper employment of time is of great benefit to us from a moral point of view. Idleness is justly said to be the rust of the mind and an idle brain is said to be Satan's workshop. It is mostly when you do not know what to do with yourself that you do something ill or wrong. The mind of the idler preys upon itself. As Watts has said:

In works of labor or of skill

Let me be busy too;

For Satan finds some mischief still

For idle hands to do.

4. Abundance is a Life Style

Abundance is a life style, a way of living your life. It isn’t something you buy now and then or pull down from the cupboard, dust off and use once or twice, and then return to the cupboard.

Abundance is a philosophy; it appears in your physiology, your value system, and carries its own set of beliefs. You walk with it, sleep with it, bath with it, feel with it, and need to maintain and take care of it as well.

Abundance doesn’t always require money. Many people live with all that money can buy yet live empty inside. Abundance begins inside with some main self-ingredients, like love, care, kindness and gentleness, thoughtfulness and compassion. Abundance is a state of being. It radiates outward. It shines like the sun among the many moons in the world.

Being from the brightness of abundance doesn’t allow the darkness to appear or

be in the path unless a choice to allow it to. The true state of abundance doesn’t have room for lies or games normally played. The space is too full of abundance. This may be a challenge because we still need to shine for other to see.

Abundance is seeing people for their gifts and not what they lack or could be. Seeing all things for their gifts and not what they lack.

Start by knowing what your abundances are, fill that space with you, and be fully present from that state of being. Your profession of choice is telling you of knowing and possibilities. That is their gift. Consultants and customer service professionals have the ministrative assistants and virtual assistants have an

abundance of coordination and time management. Abundance is all around you, and all within. See what it is; love yourself for what it is, not what you’re missing, or what that can be better, but for what it is at this present moment.

Be in a state of abundance of what you already have. I guarantee they are there; it always is buried but there. Breathe them in as if they are the air you breathe because they are yours. Let go of anything that isn’t abundant for the time being. Name the shoe boxes in your closet with your gifts of abundance; pull from them every morning if needed. Know they are there.

Learning to trust in your own abundance is required. When you begin to be within your own space of abundance, whatever you need will appear whenever you need it. That’s just the way the higher powers set this universe up to work. Trust the universal energy. The knowing of it all will humble you to its power yet let the brightness of you shine everywhere it needs to. Just by being from a state of abundance, it is being you.

译文：

富足的生活方式

富足是一种生活方式。它不是你偶尔买来，从架子上拿下来，抹去灰尘用上一两次然后又放回到架子上的东西。

富足是一种哲学，它体现于你的生理机能和价值观之中，并带有自己的一套信仰。无论走路，睡觉，洗澡你都会感受到它，你还要维护并照顾它。

富足并不一定需要金钱。许多人拥有金钱所能买到的一切，但却内心空虚。富足源自内心，其中包含一些重要的自我成分，比如爱，关心，善良和温柔，体贴与同情。富足是一种存在状态，它向处发散，像处于众多星球之间的太阳那样发光发亮。

来自富足的光亮不允许黑暗的出现或存在，除非选择允许它存在。真正的富足不给谎言或通常玩的游戏留有空间，因为富足已经把空间填得太满了。这可能是一个挑战，因为我们仍然需要为了让别人看见而发光。

富足是看到人们的天赋，而不是他的缺陷。所有的事物都要看其天赋而不是缺陷。

从知道自己的富足是什么时开始，填写满空间，全身心投入生活。你的选择已经告诉你。例如：教练能够了解队员并激发其潜力，那是他们的天赋；顾问和客服专业人士通常能够提供很多成功且很具实用性的案例；行政助理和虚拟助理熟识直辖市配合和时间管理的技巧。富足充盈于你的四周以及你的内心。明白富足的内容，爱本色的自己，不要为自己缺少的或是能变得更好的方面爱自己，而是为此时此刻的富足而爱自己。

要处于你已经拥有的事物的富足状态。我保证它们就在那儿，深藏不露却从未远离。将其看成空气，吸入体内，因为它们是你的。放开暂并不富足的东西。把你富足的所有天赋写在橱柜里的鞋盒子上，如果需要就每天早晨拉开橱柜，知道你的天赋都在那儿。

你需要学会信任自己的富足。当你开始处在自己富足的空间之内时，你需要的东西都会在你需要的时刻出现。这就是更高的力量设置这个宇宙动转的方式。要相信宇宙的能量。知道这一点会让你在其力量面前保持谦卑，但也会让你的光亮闪耀在所有需要的地方。只要处于富足的状态，就是做你自己。

5. Work and Pleasure

To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real. It is no use starting late in life to say: “I will take an interest in this or that.” Such an attempt only aggravates the strain of mental effort. A man may acquire great knowledge of topics unconnected with his daily work, and yet hardly get any benefit or relief. It is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do. Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes: those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death. It is no use offering the manual labourer, tired out with a hard week’s sweat and effort, the chance of playing a game of football or baseball on Saturday afternoon. It is no use inviting the politician or the professional or business man, who has been working or

worrying about serious things for six days, to work or worry about trifling things at the weekend.

It may also be said that rational, industrious useful human beings are divided into two classes: first, those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure; and secondly, those whose work and pleasure are one. Of these the former are the majority. They have their compensations. The long hours in the office or the factory bring with them as their reward, not only the means of

sustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and most modest forms. But Fortune’s favoured children belong to the second class. Their life is a

natural harmony. For them the working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays when they come are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation. Yet to both classes the need of an alternative outlook, of a change of atmosphere, of a diversion of effort, is

essential. Indeed, it may well be that those whose work is their pleasure are those who most need the means of banishing it at intervals from their minds.

工作和娱乐

要想获得真正的快乐与安宁，一个人应该有至少两三种爱好，而且必须是真正的爱好。到晚年才说―我对什么什么有兴趣‖是没用的，这只会徒然增添精神负担。一个人可以在自己工作之外的领域获得渊博的知识，不过他可能几乎得不到什么好处或是消遣。做你喜欢的事是没用的，你必须喜欢你所做的事。总的来说，人可以分为三种：劳累而死的、忧虑而死的、和烦恼而死的。对于那些体力劳动者来说，经历了一周精疲力竭的体力劳作，周六下午让他们去踢足球或者打棒球是没有意义的。而对那些政治家、专业人士或者商人来说，他们已经为严肃的事情操劳或烦恼六天了，周末再让他们为琐事劳神也是没有意义的。

也可以说，那些理性的、勤勉的、有价值的人们可分为两类，一类，他们的工作就是工作，娱乐就是娱乐；而另一类，他们的工作即娱乐。大多数人属于前者，他们得到了相应的补偿。长时间在办公室或工厂里的工作，回报给他们的不仅是维持了生计，还有一种强烈的对娱乐的需求，哪怕是最简单的、最朴实的娱乐。不过，命运的宠儿则属于后者。他们的生活很自然和谐。对他们来说，工作时间永远不嫌长。每天都是假日，而当正常的假日来临时，他们总是埋怨自己所全身心投入的休假被强行中断了。不过，有些事情对两类人是同样至关重要的，那就是转换一下视角、改变一下氛围、将精力转移到别的事情上。确实，对那些工作即是娱乐的人来说，最需要隔一段时间就用某种方式把工作从脑子里面赶出去。

6. Ambition

It is not difficult to imagine a world short of ambition. It would probably be a kinder world: with out demands, without abrasions, without disappointments. People would have time for reflection. Such work as they did would not be for themselves but for the collectivity. Competition would never enter in. conflict would be eliminated, tension become a thing of the past. The stress of creation would be at an end. Art would no longer be troubling, but purely celebratory in its functions. Longevity would be increased, for fewer people would die of heart attack or stroke caused by tumultuous endeavor. Anxiety would be extinct. Time would stretch on and on, with ambition long departed from the human heart.

Ah, how unrelieved boring life would be!

There is a strong view that holds that success is a myth, and ambition therefore a sham. Does this mean that success does not really exist? That achievement is at bottom empty? That the efforts of men and women are of no significance alongside the force of movements and events now not all success, obviously, is worth esteeming, nor all ambition worth cultivating. Which are and which are not is something one soon enough learns on one’s own. But even the most cynical secretly admit that success exists; that achievement counts for a great deal; and that the true myth is that the actions of men and women are useless. To believe otherwise is to take on a point of view that is likely to be deranging. It is, in its implications, to remove all motives for competence, interest in attainment, and regard for posterity.

We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or

dishonorably, with purpose or in drift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed. In the end, forming our own destiny is what ambition is about.

译文：

抱负

一个缺乏抱负的世界将会怎样，这不难想象。或许，这将是一个更为友善的世界：没有渴求，没有磨擦，没有失望。人们将有时间进行反思。他们所从事的工作将不是为了他们自身，而是为了整个集体。竞争永远不会介入；冲突将被消除。人们的紧张关系将成为过往云烟。创造的重压将得以终结。艺术将不再惹人费神，其功能将纯粹为了庆典。人的寿命将会更长，因为由激烈拼争引起的心脏病和中风所导致的死亡将越来越少。焦虑将会消失。时光流逝，抱负却早已远离人心。

啊，长此以往人生将变得多么乏味无聊！

有一种盛行的观点认为，成功是一种神话，因此抱负亦属虚幻。这是不是说实际上并不丰在成功？成就本身就是一场空？与诸多运动和事件的力量相比，男男女女的努力显得微不足？显然，并非所有的成功都值得景仰，也并非所有的抱负都值得追求。对值得和不值得的选择，一个人自然而然很快就能学会。但即使是最为愤世嫉俗的人暗地里也承认，成功确实存在，成就的意义举足轻重，而把世上男男女女的所作所为说成是徒劳无功才是真正的无稽之谈。认为成功不存在的观点很可能造成混乱。这种观点的本意是一笔勾销所有提高能力的动机，求取业绩的兴趣和对子孙后代的关注。

我们无法选择出生，无法选择父母，无法选择出生的历史时期与国家，或是成长的周遭环境。我们大多数人都无法选择死亡，无法选择死亡的时间或条件。但是在这些无法选择之中，我们的确可以选择自己的生活方式：是勇敢无畏还是胆小怯懦，是光明磊落还是厚颜无耻，是目标坚定还是随波逐流。我们决定生活中哪些至关重要，哪些微不足道。我们决定，用以显示我们自身重要性的，不是我们做了什么，就是我们拒绝做些什么。但是不论世界对我们所做的选择和决定有多么漠不关心，这些选择和决定终究是我们自己做出的。我们决定，我们选择。而当我们决定和选择时，我们的生活便得以形成。最终构筑我们命运的就是抱负之所在。

7. What I Have Lived For

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy –ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what-

at last- I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flu. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

三种激情 -----罗素

三种激情虽然简单，却异常强烈，它们统治着我的生命，那便是：对爱的渴望，对知识的追求，以及对人类苦难的难以承受的同情。这三种激情像变化莫测的狂风任意地把我刮来刮去，把我刮入痛苦的深海，到了绝望的边缘。

我曾经寻找爱，首先是因为它能使我欣喜若狂——这种喜悦之情如此强烈，使我常常宁愿为这几个小时的愉悦而牺牲生命中的其他一切。我寻求爱，其次是因为爱能解除孤独——在这种可怕的孤独中，一颗颤抖的良心在世界的边缘，注视着下面冰凉、毫无生气、望不见底的深渊。我寻求爱还因为在爱的融合中，我能以某种神秘的图像看到曾被圣人和诗人想象过的天堂里未来的景象。这就是我所追求的东西，虽然这似乎对于人类的生命来说过于完美，但这确实是我最终发现的东西。 我怀着同样的激情去寻找知识，我曾渴望着理解人心，我曾渴望知道为何星星会闪烁，我还企图弄懂毕达哥拉斯所谓的用数字控制变化的力量，但在这方面，我只知道一点点。

爱的力量和知识的力量引我接近天堂，但同情之心往往又把我拉回大地。痛苦的哭泣回响、震荡在我的心中。饥饿的儿童，被压迫、受折磨的人们，成为儿孙们讨厌的包袱的、无助的老人们，充斥着整个世界的孤独的气氛，贫穷和苦难，所有这一切都是对人类生活原本该具有的样子所作的讽刺。我渴望消除一切邪恶，但我办不到，因为我自己也处于苦难之中。 这就是我的生活，我认为值得一过。而且，如果有第二次机会，我将乐意地再过一次。

8. Man Is Here For The Sake of Other Men

Albert Einstein

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 of 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 a herd of cattle.

人是为了别人而活着

阿尔伯特.爱因斯坦

我们在这个世界上的处境是奇怪的：每个人，都是来做一次短暂的访问，不知道是为了什么。不过有时似乎也会觉察到有某种目的。 但是从平日的生活来看，有一件事情我们是很清楚的：我们是为别人而活，最重要的是为了这些人活：他们的笑容和幸福构成了我们快乐的源泉。同时，我们活着还为了另外无数个不相识的生命，怜悯之心，将我们同他们的命运联系起来。每天，很多次，我都会意识到我的肉体生活和精神生活很大程度上是建立在那些活着的，和死去的人们的工作之上的，意识到我必须诚挚地、竭尽全力地努力去回报我所得到的东西。我经常心绪不宁，感觉自己从别人的工作里承袭了太多，这种感觉让我惴惴不安。

总体上在我看来，从客观的角度，没完没了地思考自己为什么会存在，或者是生命有什么意义，是非常愚蠢的行为。不过，每个人都有一些理想，来指引着自己的抱负和辨别是非。始终在我面前闪耀着光芒，并且让我充满活着的喜悦的理想，是善、美和真理。对我来说，以舒适和享乐为目标的生活从来没有吸引力。 以这些目标为基础建立起来的一套

伦理观点只能满足一群牲畜的需要。

9. The Hippocratic Oath

I swear by Apollo the physician, by Aesculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my

judgement the following oath. To consider dear to me as my parents him who taught me this art, to live in common with him, and if necessary to share my goods with him, to look upon him children as my own brothers, to teach them this art if they so desire without fee or written promise, to impart to my sons and the sons of the master who taught me and the disciples who have enrolled themselves and have agreed to the rules of the profession, but to these alone, the precepts and the instruction. I will prescribe regimen for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgement and never do harm to anyone. To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug, nor give advice which may cause his death. Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion. But I will preserve the purity of my life and my art. I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest. I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners (specialist in this art). In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction. All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal it. If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice

my art, respected by all men and in all times, but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.

希波克拉底誓言(公元前5世纪)

仰赖医神阿波罗·埃斯克雷彼斯及天地诸神为证，鄙人敬谨宣誓愿以自身能力及判断力所急，遵守此约。凡授我艺者敬之如父母，作为终

身同业伴侣，彼有急需我接济之。视彼儿女，犹我兄弟，如欲受业，当免费并无条件传授之。凡我所知无论口授书传俱传之吾子，吾师之子及发誓遵守此约之生徒，此外不传他人。

我愿尽余之能力与判断力所及，遵守为病家谋利益之信条，并检束一切堕落及害人行为，我不得将危害药品给予他人，并不作该项之指导，虽有人请求亦不与之。尤不为妇人施堕胎手术。我愿以此纯洁与神圣之精神，终身执行我职务。凡患结石者，我不施手术，此则有待于专家为之。

无论至于何处，遇男或女、贵人及奴婢，我之唯一目的，为病家谋幸福，并检点吾身，不作各种害人及恶劣行为，尤不作诱奸之事。凡我所见所闻，无论有无业务关系，我认为应守秘密者，我愿保守秘密。尚使我严守上述誓言时，请求神抵让我生命与医术能得无上光荣，我苟违誓，天地鬼神实共亟之。

注：希波克拉底约公元前460—371)，古希腊著名医生，治学严谨，医术精湛，医德高尚。

10. The Language of Music

A painter hangs his or her finished pictures on a wall, and everyone can see it.

A composer writes a work, but no one can hear it until it is performed. Professional singers and players have great responsibilities, for the composer is utterly dependent on them. A student of music needs as long and as arduous a training to become a performer as a medical student needs to become a doctor. Most training is concerned with technique, for musicians have to have the muscular proficiency of an athlete or a ballet dancer. Singers practice breathing every day, as their vocal chords would be inadequate without controlled muscular support. String players practice moving the fingers of the left hand up

and down, while drawing the bow to and fro with the right arm—two entirely different movements.

Singers and instruments have to be able to get every note perfectly in tune. Pianists are spared this particular anxiety, for the notes are already there, waiting for them, and it is the piano tuner’s responsibility to tune the instrument for them. But they have their own difficulties; the hammers that hit the string have to be coaxed not to sound like percussion, and each overlapping tone has to sound clear.

This problem of getting clear texture is one that confronts student conductors: they have to learn to know every note of the music and how it should sound, and they have to aim at controlling these sound with fanatical but selfless authority.

Technique is of no use unless it is combined with musical knowledge and understanding. Great artists are those who are so thoroughly at home in the language of music that they can enjoy performing works written in any century.