高三勵志英語美文摘抄
勵志書籍是一種激勵讀者奮發上進、幫助人們在現實生活中建立良好的自信心、價值觀、人際關係等的書籍,對人們精神的鞭策、情感的撫慰、鬥志的激發有着非常重要的指導意義。本站小編分享高三勵志英語美文，希望可以幫助大家!
By Norman Cousins
Ever since I was old enough to read books on philosophy, I have been intrigued by the discussions on the nature of man. The philosophers have been debating for years about whether man is primarily good or primarily evil, whether he is primarily altruistic or selfish, cooperative or combative, gregarious or self-centered, whether he enjoys free will or whether everything is predetermined.
As far back as the Socratic dialogues in Plato, and even before that, man has been baffled about himself. He knows he is capable of great and noble deeds, but then he is oppressed by the evidence of great wrongdoing.
And so he wonders. I don’t presume to be able to resolve the contradictions. In fact, I don’t think we have to. It seems to me that the debate over good and evil in man, over free will and determinism, and over all the other contradictions—it seems to me that this debate is a futile one. For man is a creature of dualism. He is both good and evil, both altruistic and selfish. He enjoys free will to the extent that he can make decisions in life, but he can’t change his chemistry or his relatives or his physical endowments—all of which were determined for him at birth. And rather than speculate over which side of him is dominant, he might do well to consider what the contradictions and circumstances are that tend to bring out the good or evil, that enable him to be a nobler and responsible member of the human race. And so far as free will and determinism are concerned, something I heard in India on a recent visit might be worth passing along. Free will and determinism, I was told, are like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism. The way you play your hand represent free will.
Now where does all this leave us? It seems to me that we ought to attempt to bring about and safeguard those conditions that tend to develop the best in man. We know, for example, that the existence of fear and man’s inability to cope with fear bring about the worst in him. We know that what is true of man on a small scale can be true of society on a large scale. And today the conditions of fear in the world are, I’m afraid, affecting men everywhere. More than twenty-three hundred years ago, the Greek world, which had attained tremendous heights of creative intelligence and achievement, disintegrated under the pressure of fear. Today, too, if we read the signs correctly, there is fear everywhere. There is fear that the human race has exhausted its margin for error and that we are sliding into another great conflict that will cancel out thousands of years of human progress. And people are fearful because they don’t want to lose the things that are more important than peace itself—moral, democratic, and spiritual values.
The problem confronting us today is far more serious than the destiny of any political system or even of any nation. The problem is the destiny of man: first, whether we can make this planet safe for man; second, whether we can make it fit for man. This I believe—that man today has all the resources to shatter his fears and go on to the greatest golden age in history, an age which will provide the conditions for human growth and for the development of the good that resides within man, whether in his individual or his collective being. And he has only to mobilize his rational intelligence and his conscience to put these resources to work.
高三勵志英語美文：A Straight Wall Is Hard to BuildBy Lou R. Crandall
As I try to outline my thoughts, the subject becomes more and more difficult. I have many basic beliefs, but as I try to pick and choose, it seems to me that they can all be summarized in the word character. Obviously what you believe is a fundamental thing. There can be no fanfare, no embellishments. It must be honest.
An architect once told me that the most difficult structure to design was a simple, monumental shaft. The proportions must be perfect to be pleasing. The hardest thing to build is a plain, straight wall. The dimensions must be absolute. In either case, there is no ornamentation to hide irregularities, no moldings to cover hidden defects, and no supports to strengthen concealed weaknesses.
I’m using this example to illustrate human character, which, to me, is the most important, single power in the world today. The young people of today are, in reality, foundations of structures yet to be built. It is obvious that the design of these human structures is the combined efforts of many human architects. Boys and girls are influenced first by their parents, then by their friends, and finally by their business associates. During this period of construction, the human character is revised and changed until, at maturity, a fairly well fixed form of character is found.
There are a few human straight walls and fewer human monumental shafts. Such men and women are personalities of great beauty and are so rare that history records their being and holds them up as examples for the future. The Biblical characters are, for me, the closest examples of human perfection. They were unselfish, steadfast in their faith, and unstinted in their help to others. Today in this world of turmoil and trouble, we could use more of such people, but they do not just happen along. I believe that they are the result of concentrated effort on the part of the parents and associates, and the more we build with character, the better this world will become.
This may sound like a dreamer’s hope and a theoretical goal, which can never be reached. I do not think so. The world, as a whole, has progressed tremendously, material-wise, and we are a fortunate nation in that we are leading the possession. It is, I believe, natural that nations not so fortunate should look upon us with envy. We would do the same if the positions were reversed, so we should not judge too harshly the efforts of others to equal our standard of living. In either case, the fortunate or the unfortunate character in the individual, and collectively in the nation, stands out.
I agree that it is easier to build character under ideal conditions, but not forget that character is also required to give, as well as to receive. It should be to the benefit of humanity if all individuals—and this includes myself—did a renovating or remodeling job on our own character; it may merely be a case of removing such rough edges or tossing away moldings to expose irregularities; in some cases to remove a prop and stand on one’s own feet. In any event, if some of us set the examples, others will follow, and the results should be good. This I believe.
高三勵志英語美文：Causes Are Peopleby Susan Parker Cobbs
IT HAS NOT been easy for me to meet this assignment. In the first place, I am not a very articulate person, and then one has so many beliefs, changing and fragmented and transitory beliefs---besides the ones most central to our lives. I have tried hard to pull out and put into words my most central beliefs. I hope that what I say won’t sound either too simple or too pious.
I know that it is my deep and fixed conviction that man has within him the force of good and the power to translate force into life. For me, this means that a pattern of life that makes personal relationships more important. A pattern that makes more beautiful and attractive the personal virtues: courage, humility, selflessness and love. I used to smile at my mother because the tears came so readily to her eyes when she heard or read of some incident that called out these virtues. I don’t smile any more because I find I have become more and more responsive in the same inconvenient way to the same kind of story.
And so I believe that I both can and must work to achieve the good that is in me. The words of Socrates keep coming back to me: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” By examination we can discover what is our good and we can realize that knowledge of good means its achievement. I know that such self-examination has never been easy---Plato maintained that it was soul’s central search. It seems to me peculiarly difficult now. In a period of such rapid material expansion and such wide spread conflicts, black and white have become gray and will not easily separate.
There is a belief which follows this. If I have the potential of the good life within me and compulsion to express it, then it is a power and compulsion common to all men. What I must have for myself to conduct my search, all men must have: freedom of choice, faith in the power and the beneficent qualities of truth. What frightens me most today is the denial of these rights, because this can only come from the denial of what seems to me the essential nature of man. For if my conviction holds, man is more important than anything he has created and our great task is to bring back again into a subordinate position the monstrous superstructures of our society.
I hope this way of reducing our problems to the human equation is not simple an evasion of them. I don’t believe it is. For most of us it is the area in which we can work : the human area---with ourselves, with the people we touch, and through these two by vicarious understanding, with mankind. I believe this is the safest starting point. I watch young people these days wrestling with our mighty problems. They are much more concerned with them and involved in them than my generation of students ever was. They are deeply aware of the words “quality” and “justice” In their great desire to right wrong they are prone to forget that causes are people, that nothing matters more than people. They need to add to their crusades the warmer and more affecting virtues of compassion and love. And here again come those personal virtues that bring tears to the eyes.
One further word, I believe that the power of good within us is real and comes there from a source outside and beyond ourselves. Otherwise, I could not put my trust so firmly in it.
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