高中優秀經典英語美文摘抄

  學生通過大量的經典美文閱讀能夠開闊自己的視野,通過經典的美文閱讀可以增加文化積澱和思想內涵,通過經典美文導讀可以陶冶情操,提高素養。小編精心收集了高中優秀經典英語美文,供大家欣賞學習!

  高中優秀經典英語美文:吉米·卡特諾貝爾和平獎獲獎演說

  Your Majesties, Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

  It is with a deep sense of gratitude that I accept this prize.I am grateful to my wife Rosalynn, to my colleagues at the Carter Center,and to many others who continue to seek an end to violence and suffering throughout the world.

  Most Nobel laureates have carried out our work in safety,but there are others who have acted with great personal courage.None has provided more vivid reminders of the dangers of peacemaking than two of my friends,Anwar Sadat and Yitzak Rabin, who gave their lives for the cause of peace in the Middle East.

  Like these two heroes, my first chosen career was in the military,as a submarine officer. My shipmates andI realized that we had to be ready to fight if combat was forced upon us,and we were prepared to give our lives to defend our nation and its principles.At the same time, we always prayed fervently that our readiness would ensure that there would be no war.

  Later, as President and as Commander in Chief of our armed forces,I was one of those who bore the soberingresponsibility of maintaining global stability during the height of the Cold War,as the world’s two superpowers confronted each other.

  The world has changed greatly since I left the White House.Now there is only one superpower, with unprecedented military and economic strength.The coming budget for American armaments will be greater than those of the next fifteen nations combined,and there are troops from the United States in many countries throughout the world.

  But instead of entering a millennium of peace, the world is now,in many ways, a more dangerous place.The greater ease of travel and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual respect.There is a plethora of civil wars, within which an overwhelming portion of the casualties are unarmed civilians who have no ability to defend themselves. And recent appalling acts of terrorism have reminded us that no nations,even superpowers, are invulnerable.

  It is clear that global challenges must be met with an emphasis on peace, in harmony with others,with strong alliances and international consensus. Imperfect as it may be,there is no doubt that this can best be done through the United Nations.

  We must remember that today there are at least eight nuclear powers on earth,

  and three of them are threatening to their neighbors in areas of great international tension.For powerful countries to adopt a principle of preventive war may well set an examplethat can have catastrophic consequences.

  If we accept the premise that the United Nations is the best avenue for the maintenance of peace, then thecarefully considered decisions of the United Nations Security Council must be enforced. All too often, thealternative has proven to be uncontrollable violence and expanding spheres of hostility.***節選***

  尊敬的國王夫婦、挪威諾貝爾和平獎委員會委員、大使閣下、女士們、先生們:

  我懷著一種深摯的感激之情接受這一獎項。我要感謝我的妻子羅莎琳、我在卡特中心的同事們和許多其他繼續尋求終結 全世界黎力和苦難的人們。

  大多數諾貝爾和平獎獲得者可以安全地從事我們的工作, 可是也有一些人在工作中表現出巨大的個人勇氣。最為請楚地 提醒我們締造和平的危險的是我的兩個朋友——安瓦爾•薩達 特和伊扎克•拉賓,他們為中東的和平事業獻出了自己的生命。

  和這兩位英雄一樣,我首先選定的職業是在軍隊做一名潛水艇軍官。我的戰友和我認識到假如戰爭強加子我們,我們必 須準備戰鬥,為捍衛袓國及其原則而獻出我們的生命。與此同 時,我們總在熱誠地祈禱,我們的準備可以確保戰爭不會爆發。

  後來,作為總統和武裝部隊的總司令,我承擔著在冷戰高峰時期世界兩個超級大國相互敵視狀態下維護全球穩定的重大責任。自從我離幵白宮以來,世界已經發生了巨大變化。現在世界上僅剩下一個超級大國,其擁有史無前例的軍事和經濟實力。美國來年的軍亊預算將超過位居其後的15國的總和,而且美軍駐紮在全世界許許多多的國家。

  但是,我們並未進入一個和平的新千年。在許多方面,現在的世界反而是一個更加危險的地方。旅行和通訊的極大便利並未帶來同樣的理解和相互尊重。世界上依然有很多內戰,絕大部分內戰的死難者是那些手無寸鐵而又無力自衛的平民。而新近發生的駭人聽聞的恐怖主義行動提醒我們,沒有一個國家能 夠倖免,甚至是超級大國。

  顯然,全球性的挑戰必須以強調和平的重要性、和他國和睦相處與結成穩固的聯盟和國際共識的手段來應對。儘管聯合國並不完美,但是無疑通過它可以最好地應對這種挑戰。

  我們必須牢記,今天的地球上至少有8個擁有核武器的國家,其中的3個正在充滿國際緊張局勢的地區威脅著它們的鄰國。對於強國來講,採取先發制人的戰爭原則將會樹立具有災難性後果的先例。

  假如我們接受聯合國是最好的維護和平的途徑這一前提, 那麼聯合國安理會經過審慎考慮後的決議就必須得以貫徹執行。歷史一再證明,其他的選擇將帶來難以掌控的暴力並擴大敵對的範圍。

  高中優秀經典英語美文:人類將取勝

  I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work,a life’s work in the agonyand sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit,but to create out of thematerials of the human spirit something which did not exist before.So this award is only mine intrust. It will not be diffcult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate withthe purpose and significance of its origin.But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too,

  by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men andwomen already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that onewho will some day stand here whereI am standing.

  Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that wecan even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: Whenwill I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten theproblems of the human heart in conflictwith itself which alone can make good writing becauseonly that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again.

  He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that,forget itforever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths ofthe heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed,loveand honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he laborsunder a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, ofdefeats in which nobody loses anything ofvalue, of victories whthout hope and, worst of all, without pityor compassion.His griefs grieveon no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but ofthe glands.

  Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end ofman. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simplybecause he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from thelast worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there willstill be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to acceptthis. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal,not because healone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capableof compassion and sacrfice and endurance.

  The poet’s, the writer’s duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help manendure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and prideand compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’svoice need not merely be the record of man,it can be one of the props, the pillars to help himendure and prevail.

  我覺得,這個獎不是授給我這個人,而是授給我的創作——那沉浸於人類心靈的煎熬與勞苦之中的畢生勞作——它既不為名譽,亦不為利潤,只是為了創造出前所未有的人類精神的樣本。因而,這個獎只是由我暫時保管罷了。要為這筆獎金找一個與它設定的目的和意義相稱的用途並非難事,然而我卻想以同樣的方式利用這個讚美——我要把這個時刻當作一個巔峰,使自己能被那些已經獻身於同樣的心靈煎熬與勞苦的青年男女們聽見,未來的某一天他們中的一個將會站在我今天所站的地方。

  我們今天的悲劇,是一種全面的普遍的肉體的恐懼,這種恐懼持續已久以至我們甚至能夠忍受它。不再有心靈的問題了,剩下的只有一個疑問:我何時會被毀滅?因此當今從事寫作的青年男女已經忘記人的內心衝突的問題,而惟有它才能產生好的作品,因為只有它才值得我們去寫,值得我們為之忍受煎熬與勞苦。

  對此他必須重新學習。他必須告誡自己,所有事物中最卑劣的便是恐懼;他必須告誡自己,永遠忘記它;在他的工場不應有任何其他東西,除了古老的真理和心靈的真實——沒了這普遍的真理,任何文學作品都是短命的,僵死的——這就是愛、榮譽、憐憫、自尊、同情和犧牲。在他這樣做之前,他將在詛咒下勞作。他描寫的不是愛情而是性慾。他寫的失敗中沒有人失去任何有價值的東西,他寫的成功裡沒有希望——更糟的是——沒有憐憫與同情。他的悲哀因缺乏普世價值的骨骼而留不下傷痕。他描繪的不是人的心靈,而是他的腺體。

  除非他學會了這些事情,否則,他將如同置身於末日為注視末日的來臨而寫。我拒絕接受人類末日的說法。僅僅因為人能夠忍受就說他是不朽的,這也太輕鬆了。說什麼即便當那末日的鐘聲敲響,並從那默默地懸墜於垂死的黃昏與夕陽的殘紅裡的最後的無價值的岩石上飄零消逝之時,世界上還會有一種聲音——即人的微弱卻永不衰竭的聲音——在不停地訴說。我拒絕接受這個。我深信,人不僅會忍耐,他還將蓬勃發展。他是不朽的,不是因為生物中唯有他的聲音永不衰竭,而是因為他有靈魂,有能同情能犧牲能忍耐的心靈。

  詩人和作家的責任,就在於描寫這些事物。他的特權,就在於通過昇華人的心靈,通過喚醒人的勇氣、榮譽、希望、尊嚴、同情、憐憫和犧牲這些記錄了人的往昔光榮的精神,來幫助人忍耐。詩人的聲音,不必僅僅成為人的記錄,更能成為幫助他忍耐與成功的一種支柱和棟樑。

  高中優秀經典英語美文:讀書之樂

  All the wisdom of the ages, all the stories that have delighted mankind for centuries,are easily and cheaply available to all of us within the covers of books but we must know how to avail ourselves of this treasure and how to get the most from it.The most unfortunate people in the world are those who have never discovered how satisfying it is to read good books.

  I am most interested in people, in them and finding out about them.Some of the most remarkable people I’ve met existed only in a writer’s imagination,then on the pages of his book, and then, again, in my imagination.I’ve found in books new friends, new societies, new words.

  If I am interested in people, others are interested not so much in who as in how.Who in the books includeseverybody from science fiction superman two hundred centuries in the future all the way back to the first figures in history.How covers everything from the ingenious explanations of Sherlock Holmes to the discoveries of science and ways of teaching manner to children.

  Reading is pleasure of the mind, which means that it is a little like a eagerness and knowledgeand quickness make you a good reader. Reading is fun,not because the writer is telling you something, but because it makes your mind work.Your own imagination works along with the author’s or even goes beyond his.Your experience, compared with his, brings you to the same or different conclusions,and your ideas develop as you understand his.

  Every book stands by itself, like a one-family house,but books in a library are like houses in a city. Although they are separate, together they all add up to something, they are connected with each other and with other cities.The same ideas, or related ones, turn up in different places;the human problems that repeatthemselves in life repeat themselves in literature,but with different solutions according to different writings at different times.Books influence each other; they link the past, the present and the future and have their own generations,like families.Wherever you start reading you connect yourself with one of the families of ideas, and in the long run,you not only find out about the world and the people in it; you find out about yourself, too.

  Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tells you you “ought”to read,you probably won’t have fun. But if you put down a book you don’t like and try another till you find one that means something to you, and then relax with it, you will almost certainly have a good tim and if you become, as a result of reading,better, wiser, kinder, or more gentle, you won’t have suffered during the process.

  人類世世代代全部的聰明才智,幾百年來愉悅人們的所有故事,都可以輕易而實惠地從書中獲得。可是,我們必須要懂得如何利用這一寶藏,進而獲得最大收益。世界上最不幸的人就是那些從未體會到閱讀佳作是多麼令人心滿意足的人。

  我對人很感興趣,對他們個人以及發掘他們同樣興趣十足。我所碰到的一些卓越的人物只能到作家的想像之中去尋找,然後又體現在作家的作品中,最後又出現在我的想像之中。我在書中結識了新朋友,拓展了社會知識,也學到了新的語言。

  如果說我是對人感興趣,那麼其他人的興趣則是關注“怎 樣”而不是“誰"的問題。書中的"誰"所包括的人物可謂豐寓多彩,不僅有科幻小說中描寫的兩萬年之後的超人,還可以追溯到人類歷史的幵端。而書中的"怎樣"所記錄的事情也是千奇百怪,從對福爾摩斯偵探故事的巧妙敘述到科學發現以及管教孩子的方法。

  讀書是一種思維享受,也就是說有點像體育運動。善於讀書的人需要強烈的求知慾、豐富的知識和敏捷的反應。讀書之所以是一種樂趣,並不在於作者告訴你什麼,而是由於讀書使你積極思考。在作者的引導之下,你的想像任意馳騁,甚至超越作者的想像。對比作者的經歷,你會得出自己的結論,也許相同,也許相悖,而隨著你對作者思想的逐步理解,你也會變得越來越深刻。

  每一部書都獨立存在,猶如獨門獨戶的房子。而圖書館中的書籍則像城市中的建築。儘管它們各成一體,但是卻共同構成一個整體。不僅它們之間相互關聯,而且也與其他城市相互聯絡。相同或者相關的看法在不同的地方出現。文學作品中反映的就是人們生活中經常出現的事情,但是在不同時期作者的處理方式卻大相徑庭。書籍之間也相互影響,它們傳承過去,體現現在,預測未來,相互聯絡,代代相傳,形成各個家族。不管你從何處讀起,都會有一種觀點與你的相符。從長遠來看,你不僅從書中瞭解世界,體驗別人的生活,你也會認識你自己。

  只有你誠心讀書,閱讀才會成為一種樂趣。假如你讀的是別人認為“該”讀的書,你很有可能覺得索然無味。假如你放下自己不喜歡的書,另試一本,直到發現自己覺得有意義的書,然後心情輕鬆地讀下去,你肯定會感到心情暢快。假如你因閱讀 而變得更為高尚、聰明、善良、文雅,那讀書的過程就不再是一種負擔了。