高中經(jīng)典英語(yǔ)勵(lì)志美文摘抄
針對(duì)學(xué)生的獨(dú)特性,勵(lì)志教育可以通過(guò)課堂勵(lì)志、讀書(shū)勵(lì)志,專題講座、報(bào)告勵(lì)志,校園文化勵(lì)志,社會(huì)實(shí)踐勵(lì)志等途徑,幫助學(xué)生樹(shù)立自信、自立、自制與自強(qiáng)的信念,激發(fā)其潛能,努力創(chuàng)造條件實(shí)現(xiàn)自己的理想和人生目標(biāo)。學(xué)習(xí)啦小編分享高中經(jīng)典英語(yǔ)勵(lì)志美文,希望可以幫助大家!
高中經(jīng)典英語(yǔ)勵(lì)志美文:What Are People Good For?
By Ina Corinne Brown
One's beliefs are revealed not so much in words or in formal creeds as in the assumptions on which one habitually acts and in the basic values by which all choices are tested.
The cornerstone of my own value system was laid in childhood with parents who believed that personal integrity came first. They never asked, ”What will people think?” The question was,“What will you think of yourself, if you do this or fail to do that?” Thus, living up to one’s own conception of one’s self became a basic value, and the question, “What will people think,” took a subordinate place.
A second basic value, in some ways an extension of the first, I owe to an old college professor, who had suffered more than his share of grief and trouble. Over and over he said to us, “The one thing that really matters is to be bigger than the things that can happen to you. Nothing that can happen to you is half so important that the way in which you end it.”
Gradually I realized that here was the basis of the only really security and peace of mind that a human being can have. Nobody can be sure when disaster, disappointment, injustice, or humiliation, may come to him through no fault of his own. Nor can one be guaranteed against one’s own mistakes and failures. But the way we meet life is ours to choose. And when integrity, fortitude, dignity, and compassion are our choice, the things that can happen to us lose their power over us.
The acceptance of these two basic values led to a third. If what one is and how one meets life are of first importance, one is not impressed by another's money, status, or power, nor does one judge people by their race, color, or social position. This opens up a whole new world of relationships, for when friendships are based on qualities of mind and character, one can have friends among old and young, rich and poor, famous and unknown, educated and unlettered, and among people of all races and all nations.
Given these three basic values, a fourth became inevitable. It is one's duty and obligation to help create a social order in which persons are more important than things, ideas more precious than gadgets, and in which individuals are judged on the basis of personal worth. Moreover, for this judgment to be fair, human beings must have an opportunity for the fullest development of which they are capable. One is thus led to work for a world of freedom and justice through those social agencies and institutions which make it possible for people everywhere to realize their highest potentialities.
Perhaps all this adds up to a belief in what has been called the human use of human beings. We are set off from the rest of the animal world by our capacity consciously to transcend our physical needs and desires. Men must concern themselves with food and with other physical needs, and they must protect themselves and their own from bodily harm, but these activities are not exclusively human. Many animals concern themselves with these things. When we worship, pray, or feel compassion, when we enjoy a painting, a sunset or a sonata, when we think and reason, pursue ideas, seek truth, or read a book, when we protect the weak and helpless, when we honor the noble and cherish the good, when we cooperate with our fellow men to build a better world, our behavior is worthy of our status as human beings.
人們行善是為了什么?
艾娜.科林娜.布朗
人類的信仰并非全是通過(guò)言辭或形式的教條,以及對(duì)一個(gè)人行為習(xí)慣的設(shè)想或其做出選擇所依據(jù)的價(jià)值觀所體現(xiàn)出來(lái)的。
孩提時(shí),父母的教誨正是我個(gè)人基本價(jià)值觀的來(lái)源,他們相信人格是一切之首。他們從不問(wèn):“人們會(huì)怎么想?”而是問(wèn):“如果你做這件事而不做那件,你會(huì)怎么想?”因此,按自己的意愿生活便成為了最基本的價(jià)值觀,而“人們會(huì)怎么想?”這個(gè)問(wèn)題則退居二線。
從某種程度上來(lái)說(shuō),第二條基礎(chǔ)價(jià)值觀就是對(duì)第一條的延伸,這是我從一位大學(xué)老教授那里了解到的。他所遭受的不幸與痛苦比常人要多得多。他不止一次地告訴我們:“你要比發(fā)生在你身上的苦難更為強(qiáng)大;面對(duì)不幸的態(tài)度比你所遭受的不幸更為重要。這一點(diǎn)很重要。”
慢慢地,我了解到,這正是人類擁有真正安全感與平和心態(tài)的基礎(chǔ)。即使自己并無(wú)任何過(guò)錯(cuò),也沒(méi)有人確切地知道,災(zāi)難、失望、不公或羞辱何時(shí)會(huì)降臨到自己的頭上,而且也沒(méi)人敢保證自己不會(huì)犯錯(cuò)、不會(huì)失敗。但是,我們可以選擇面對(duì)生活的方式。當(dāng)我們選擇正直、堅(jiān)韌、尊嚴(yán)與同情時(shí),任何不幸的威脅都無(wú)法影響到我們。
當(dāng)你接受了前兩條基本的價(jià)值觀,也就能夠接受這第三條。如果一個(gè)人堅(jiān)持自我以及自己的生活方式,那他就不會(huì)為他人的金錢(qián)、地位與權(quán)利所動(dòng),也不會(huì)以人們的種族、膚色或社會(huì)地位來(lái)評(píng)價(jià)他們。
全新的人際關(guān)系世界就此開(kāi)啟了。因?yàn)?,?dāng)友誼基于思想與人品時(shí),老人與青年、富人與窮人、名人與普通人、受過(guò)良好教育的人、目不識(shí)丁者,以及不同種族、不同民族的人們都能夠成為你的朋友。
有了上面三條基本的價(jià)值觀,第四條自然就無(wú)法避免。它是一個(gè)人協(xié)助創(chuàng)造社會(huì)秩序的責(zé)任與義務(wù)。在這個(gè)社會(huì)秩序中,人比物重要,思想比精巧的器具重要,個(gè)人的價(jià)值是以人的基本原則為基礎(chǔ)的。
此外,為保證這個(gè)評(píng)判的公正,人類必須有機(jī)會(huì)全面發(fā)展自身的能力。于是,社會(huì)組織與機(jī)構(gòu)便致力于使世界各地的人們認(rèn)識(shí)到他們最大的潛能,并引導(dǎo)人們?yōu)閯?chuàng)造一個(gè)自由公平的世界而工作。
也許,所有這一切加起來(lái)就形成了一種信仰,那就是人類如何實(shí)現(xiàn)自我價(jià)值。我們?nèi)祟愔詢?yōu)于動(dòng)物,是因?yàn)槿藫碛凶杂X(jué)控制自身需求與欲望的能力。人類必須考慮食物與自身的需求,必須保護(hù)自身與親人不受傷害,但是這些行為并不只限于人類。很多動(dòng)物都擁有這方面的本能。當(dāng)我們膜拜、祈禱或感動(dòng)時(shí);當(dāng)我們欣賞畫(huà)作、夕陽(yáng)或奏鳴曲時(shí);當(dāng)我們思考推理、追隨靈感、尋求真相或閱讀一本書(shū)時(shí);當(dāng)我們保護(hù)弱者與無(wú)助的人時(shí);當(dāng)我們尊敬高尚的人、心懷行善的愿望時(shí);當(dāng)我們?yōu)榻ㄔO(shè)更美好的世界與他人合作時(shí);我們的行為才使我們無(wú)愧于“人類”這個(gè)稱呼。
高中經(jīng)典英語(yǔ)勵(lì)志美文:About Secrets and Falling Tiles
By Carroll Binder
“We are all at the mercy of a falling tile,” Julius Caesar reminds us in Thornton Wilder’s Ides of March. None of us knows at what hour something we may love may suffer some terrible blow by a force we can neither anticipate nor control.
Fifty-five years of living, much of the time in trouble centers of a highly troubled era, have not taught me how to avoid being hit by falling tiles. I have sustained some very severe blows. My mother died when I was three years old. My first-born son, a gifted and idealistic youth, was killed in the war. While I was still cherishing the hope that he might be alive, circumstances beyond my control made it impossible for me to continue work into which I had poured my heart’s blood for twenty years.
I speak of such things here in the hope of helping others to believe with me that there are resources within one’s grasp which enable one to sustain such blows without being crushed or embittered by them.
I believe the best hope of standing up to falling tiles is through developing a sustaining philosophy and state of mind all through life. I have seen all sorts of people sustain all sorts of blows in all sorts of circumstances by all sorts of faiths, so I believe anyone can find a faith that will serve his needs if he persists in the quest.
One of the best ways I know of fortifying oneself to withstand the vicissitudes of this insecure and unpredictable era is to school oneself to require relatively little in the way of material possessions, physical satisfactions, or the praise of others. The less one requires of such things the better situated one is to stand up to changes of fortune.
I am singularly rich in friendships. Friends of all ages have contributed enormously to my happiness and helped me greatly in times of need. I learned one of the great secrets of friendship early in life—to regard each person with whom one associates as an end in himself, not a means to one’s own ends. That entails trying to help those with whom one comes in contact to find fulfillment in their own way while seeking one’s own fulfillment in one’s own way.
Another ethical principle that has stood me in good stead is: Know thyself! I try to acquaint myself realistically with my possibilities and limitations. I try to suit my aspirations to goals within my probably capacity to attain. I may have missed some undiscovered possibilities fro growth, but I have spared myself much by not shooting for stars it clearly was not given me to attain.
I have seen much inhumanity, cheating, corruption, sordidness, and selfishness but I have not become cynical. I have seen too much that is decent, kind, and noble in me to lose faith in the possibility for a far finer existence than yet has been achieved. I believe the quest for a better life is the most satisfying pursuit of men and nations.
I love life, but I am not worried about death. I do not feel that I have lost my son and a host of others dear to me by death. I believe with William Penn that “they that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.” Death, I believe, teaches us the things of deathlessness.
高中經(jīng)典英語(yǔ)勵(lì)志美文:How to Give Your Money Away
By Dr. Samuel Best
Many years ago I met a man whose unique psychology helped me to shed a life of struggle and uneasiness for great happiness, for peace of mind, and for a measure of success I otherwise would not have attained.
His name was George Robert White, a man who was orphaned and impoverished at a tender age. Yet, a man whose God-given beliefs made him both a material and a spiritual millionaire at thirty.
My path to success, and to what I had considered its natural result- happiness-was the ordinary road over which most American businessmen travel, namely, endless hours of hard work, social contacts, wise investments, headaches and heartaches.
To be sure, in a materialistic sense, I had traveled a long way from my father’s farm in Nova Scotia. I had become an executive in a multi-million dollar drug firm. But where was the resulting happiness that my material gain was supposed to have afforded me?
In my private moments of mental inventory, I discovered that I had no more peace of mind, nor was I less afraid of the problems of life and death, than many years before, when I planned my road to happiness and success by the flickering lamp in my father's tiny farmhouse. The reason was, I had neglected spiritual values in my anxiety for material gain.
It took the kindly advice of George Robert White, to open the pathway for me to happiness and freedom of mind. The important lesson Mr. White taught me is this: If we are to be happy, if we are to be successful in every aspect of the word, if we are to live truly full lives, we must share ourselves, as well as our material gain, with our fellow men.
As a young man, Mr. White took over the leadership of a small soap-manufacturing plant in Boston, and throughout his career he gave away to charity a large part of his net profits.
Yet, despite his unusual business practices, Mr. White built that tiny concern into the world-famous Cuticura Corporation, and became the multi-million-dollar manufacturer of Cuticura Soap, Ointment and Shampoo.
I shall never forget Mr. White's words: "Personal success, business success, built upon materialism alone, are empty shells concealing disappointment, saddened lives," which he epitomized by saying: "Cast your bread upon the waters and it will come back in abundance."
Since Mr. White's death, I have endeavored, as his successor, to adhere to his code of ethics. Two dollars out of every three dollars profit earned by our corporation is shared with others in helping to make our nation a better place in which to live.
We, in our corporation, believe that it is not sufficient only to manufacture as fine a product as is possible-millions of dollars over the years are being shared by our corporation for the advancement of medicine and science, for chemical research, for art and for beauty.
In my personal life I have adopted Mr. White's beliefs, and, in doing so, I have become much better equipped to serve humanity.
My reward, my blessings, have come to me in the form of personal satisfaction and peace of mind that had been substantially foreign to me.
Yes, I believe that spirituality is the needed seasoning to America's materialism. But it must be that kind of spirituality that takes the form of help and service toward our fellow men.
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