英语美文100篇.docx

1、英语美文100篇Passage 1. knowledge and VirtueKnowledge is one thing, virtue is another;good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility,nor is largeness and justness of view faith.Philosophy, however enlightened, however profound,gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivif

2、ying principles.Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman.It is well to be a gentleman,it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste,a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind,a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of lifethese are the connatural

3、 qualities of a large knowledge;they are the objects of a University.I am advocating, I shall illustrate and insist upon them;but still, I repeat, they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness,and they may attach to the man of the world, to the profligate,to the heartless, pleasan

4、t, alas, and attractive as he shows when decked out in them.Taken by themselves, they do but seem to be what they are not;they look like virtue at a distance, but they are detected by close observers, and in the long run;and hence it is that they are popularly accused of pretense and hypocrisy,not,

5、I repeat, from their own fault,but because their professors and their admirers persist in taking them for what they are not,and are officious in arrogating for them a praise to which they have no claim.Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk,then may you hope wi

6、th such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants,Passage 2. “Packing” a PersonA person, like a commodity, needs packaging.But going too far is absolutely undesirable.A little exaggeration, however, does no harm when it shows the persons unique

7、 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 bein

8、g, 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

9、 by time.If you still enjoy lifes exuberance enough to retain self-confidenceand 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 cours

10、e 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

11、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 elders company is like reading a thick book of deluxe edition that fascinates one so much as to be reluctant to part with.As long as one fi

12、nds where one stands, one knows how to package oneself,just as a commodity establishes its brand by the right packaging.Passage 3. Three Passions I Have Lived forThree passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life:the longing for love, the search for knowledge,and unbearable pity

13、 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 ecstasyecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest

14、 of my life for a few hours for this joy.I have sought it, next, because it relieves lonelinessthat 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,i

15、n 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 whatat lastI have found.With equal passion I have sought knowledge.I have wished to understand the hearts of men.I have wished

16、 to know why the stars shine .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, h

17、elpless old peoplea 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 againif the chance

18、 were offered me.Passage 4. A Little GirlSitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl.With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing,while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloud that hovered like a golden feather above her hea

19、d.The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair,gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black.So completely absorbed was she in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation seemed addressed,that she did not

20、 observe me when I rose and went towards her.Over her head, high up in the blue,a lark that was soaring towards the same gauzy cloud was singing, as if in rivalry.As I slowly approached the child,I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl,and especially by her co

21、mplexion, that she uncommonly lovely.Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet,were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way,and these matched in hue her eyebrows,and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat were quivering in the sunlig

22、ht.All this I did not take in at once;for at first I could see nothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face.Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth,grew upon me as I stood silently gazing.Here seemed to me a more perfect beauty than

23、had ever come to me in my loveliest dreams of beauty.Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me.Passage 5 Declaration of IndependenceWhen in the Course of human events,it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connecte

24、d them with another,and to assume among the powers of the earth,the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natures God entitle them,a decent respect to the opinions of mankindrequires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths t

25、o be self-evident, that all men are created equal,that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,deriving their just powers from the consent of th

26、e governed,That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,and to institute new Government,laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,as to them shall seem most likely to effect their

27、Safety and Happiness.Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long establishedshould not be changed for light and transient causes;and accordingly all experience has shown,that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to

28、which they are accustomed.But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty,to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.Such has been

29、the patient sufferance of these Colonies;and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.To prove this, let Facts b

30、e submitted to a candid world.Passage 6. A Tribute to the DogThe best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy.His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful.Those who are nearest and dearest to us,those whom we trust with our happiness an

31、d our good name,may become traitors to their faith.The money that a man has he may lose.It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most.A mans reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action.The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with u

32、s may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world,the one that never deserts him,the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.A mans dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness.He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely,if only he may be near his masters side.He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer;he will lick the wounds and sores that come from encoun