英文勵志名人故事

　　同學們在平時多看一些可以有效提高自己的閱讀理解能力哦，那麼都有哪些呢?一起來看看吧。

　　：凱瑟琳·格拉罕

　　It could safely be said of Katherine Graham that few women had a greater infulence on 20th-centllry American history. When she died at the age of 84, peop1e from all walks of life were swift and generous in their eulogies.

　　我們可以有把握地說，沒有幾個婦女像凱瑟琳·格拉罕對20世紀美國曆史有這麼大的影響。她84歲去世時，各界人士紛紛趕往悼念，表示敬意。

　　Katherine Meyer was born in 1917 to a wealthy and fami1y. Her father was a multimillionaire who gave up business and government service to buy the Washington Post in 1933. Katherine shared his love of journalism, and worked on the paper's editing desk for a few years before getting married.

　　凱瑟琳·邁耶 1917年出生在一個富裕的特權家庭。她的父親是一位大富豪，他放棄了工作和政府部門的職位，在1933年買下了境況不佳的《華盛頓郵報》。凱瑟琳承襲了父親對新聞的熱愛，婚前在這家報社的編輯部工作了數年。

　　Her husband, Phil Graham, was a bright young lawyer who took over at the Post in 1945. But Phil suffered from manic depression later, which gradually got worse, culminating in his suicide when Katherine was 46. Suddenly, she found herself in control of the Post.

　　她的丈夫菲爾·格拉罕曾是一位很出色的年輕律師，他1945年接管了華盛頓郵報。但後來他被躁狂抑鬱症所折磨，病情日漸惡化，最後在凱瑟琳46歲時他自殺身亡。突然間，她感到管理郵報的責任落在了自己身上。

　　Graham took over the day-to-day running of the paper Skeptics who had doubted her ability to make a success of it were dumbfounded as her enthusiasm and tenacity proved them wrong.

　　格拉罕接管了郵報每日的運作。當她，以熱忱和執著證明了那些曾懷疑她能力不足的人是錯誤的時候，他們都啞口無言。

　　Graham was never afraid of making a courageous decision. Against the advice of the Post's lawyers, she sided with her editors and published the Pentagon Papers. The papers were top secret documents about the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. She later remained steadfast in the face of government pressure not to pursue the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

　　格拉罕從來不怕果斷地作決定。她不聽從郵報律師們的勸告，而支援她手下的編輯們，發表了《五角大樓檔案》，這些檔案是有關美國捲入越戰的最高機密檔案。即使面臨政府施加的壓力，要她不要再追究後來迫使尼克松總統下臺的水門事件，她始終立場堅定。

　　Graham handed over the control of the Post to her son in 1991, when she was 74 years old. By that time, she was often being described as the most powerful woman in America. Whether or not that was true, few would disagree with the assessment of one of her many admirers, that without her, Washington "would have been a much less civilized place."

　　1991年，葛拉罕74歲時，將掌管郵報的權力移交給了她的兒子。那時，她常被形容為美國最有影響的女人。無論這種說法是否正確，相信多數人都會認同她眾多仰慕者之一給予的評價：沒有她，華盛頓“就會是遠不如現在文明的地方”。

　　：海倫·凱勒

　　She fought for women's right, crusaded for the causes of workers, promoted equality for minorities, and championed the underprivileged and the oppressed. She also earned several prestigious awards from countries as diverse as Japan, Brazil, and Lebanon. An impressive list of achievements for any human, all this was accomplished by a woman who was blind and deaf.

　　她為女權而戰、投身工人事業、促進弱勢團體平等權利、支援受苦和受壓迫的人。她還榮獲日本、巴西、黎巴嫩等國頒發的幾項榮譽大獎。對任何人來說，這都是讓人印象深刻的成就，然而這是由一位雙眼失明雙耳失聰的女人取得的。

　　Helen Keller was born a healthy child in 1880 in Alabama. Stricken by illness at the tender age of nineteen months, Helen lost her ability to see, hear, and speak. Growing up unable to comprehend the world around her, Helen became wild and unruly, until her parents found help.

　　1880年，海倫·凱勒在美國的阿拉巴馬州出生時是個健康的孩子。可在她19個月大時，她得了一場大病，海倫從此失去了視覺、聽覺和說話的能力。在成長的過程中，她無法瞭解周圍的一切，變得狂躁而難以管教，最後她的父母只好求助於他人。

　　They contacted Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the famous inventor and teacher of the deaf, who introduced them to an institute for the blind in Boston, Massachusetts. A student there, Annie Sullivan, was asked to help. Annie would later become known as the "Miracle Worker."

　　他們和著名的發明家、聾啞教師亞力山大·貝爾博士取得聯絡之後，被介紹到一家位於馬薩諸塞州波士頓的盲人機構。該機構的學生安妮·蘇利文應邀提供幫助。她就是後來那位著名的“奇蹟創造者”。

　　Annie Sullivan taught Helen how to connect objects with letters by spelling words into Helen's hands. Helen's breakthrough came when Annie held her hand under a water pump while spelling "water" into her other hand repeatedly. Helen suddenly understood, and from then on progressed by leaps and bounds.

　　蘇利文在海倫手上拼字，藉此教她如何將物體和字母聯絡在一起。有一次安妮把海倫的手放在水泵出水口下，並且在她的另一支手上重複拼寫water的時候，海倫突然明白了，她的學習有了重大突破。從此她進步神速。

　　Having mastered both the manual and Braille alphabets, Helen became proficient in reading and writing, and began learning how to speak in 1890. Helen entered Radcliffe College and, assisted by Annie Sullivan, graduated cum laude in 1904. She was the first blind-deaf person ever to graduate from college.

　　海倫在學會了手指拼字法和布萊耶盲人點字法後，她的閱讀和書寫能力變得熟練起來;1890年，她開始學習說話。後來海倫在蘇利文的幫助下，進入拉德克利夫Radchffe學院就讀，1904年以優異的成績畢業，她成為第一位大學畢業的盲啞人。

　　Helen Keller spent the rest of her life as a writer, lecturer, and advocate for the deaf and blind and other disadvantaged groups. She traveled to numerous countries on behalf of the disabled, and founded the Helen Keller Endowment Fund for the American Foundation for the Blind in 1930. She died on June 1, 1968, an outstanding example of the unconquerable human spirit.

　　海倫·凱勒的餘生都致力於寫作和演講，聲援盲人、聾人和其他，弱勢群體。她代表殘疾人，足跡踏遍海外各國，並且在1930年為美國盲人基金會建立了海倫·凱勒捐贈基金。海倫·凱勒於1968年6月1日與世長辭，她可以說是人類不屈不撓精神的最佳典範。

　　：漢斯·克里斯蒂安·安徒生

　　Born on April 2, 1805, in Odense, Denmark, Andersen was an emotional, yet imaginative, child. His father, a poor shoemaker, died in 1816. With a mother who was very superstitious and unable to read or write, the boy received little education as a child.

　　安徒生1805年4月2日出生於丹麥歐登塞，他是一個多愁善感而富於想象力的孩子。他的父親是一個貧困的鞋匠，在1816年去世。由於母親非常迷信而且不會讀書寫字，這個男孩小時候沒受過什麼教育。

　　Andersen traveled to Copenhagen. There, he hoped to become an actor or singer. He was lucky enough to spend some time with the Royal Theater, but when his voice changed, he had to leave. Luckily, one of the directors helped him by arranging his education。

　　14歲，安徒生前往哥本哈根。他希望能在那兒成為一名演員或歌手。他有幸能在皇家劇院待了一段時間，但當他變聲以後，他不得不離開。幸運的是，一位導演幫助他，為他安排接受教育。

　　Andersen gained admission to the University of Copenhagen in 1828, and his literary career began soon afterwards. He hoped to achieve success with poems and plays, and underestimated the kind of stories which have made him famous. Though not particularly fond of children, he had a gift for entertaining them. This led a friend to suggest he write down the stories he invented.

　　1828年安徒生獲准進入哥本哈根大學學習，隨後他的文學創作生涯很快就開始了。他原本希望能在詩和戲劇的領域裡獲得成功，而低估了後來使他成名的那類故事。雖然他不是特別喜歡孩子，卻有使孩童快樂的天賦。這一點促使一位朋友建議他寫下自己創造的故事。

　　Many of Andersen's tales are based on folklore, and many are products of his own imagination. All of them are told in a humorous and informal style that children loved from the start. Few serious critics, however, took notice of them when they first appeared.

　　安徒生的很多故事是以民間傳說為根據，也有很多是他自己想象力的產物。所有的故事都以孩子們一聽就喜歡的詼諧和口語體講述。然而這些作品最初問世時，幾乎沒有嚴肅的評論家注意到它們。

　　Before his death in 1875, Andersen regularly traveled around Europe, and was enthusiastically welcomed everywhere he went. Because he had always wanted to be famous, he worked hard to gain a reputation in European literary circles. Being a rather vain man, he complained in "The Fairy Tale of My Life" one of three autobiographies he wrote, that people were not interested in his "serious" writing.

　　安徒生在1875年去世前，定期遊歷歐洲各地，所到之處他都受到了熱烈的歡迎。由於安徒生長久以來一直渴望出名，於是他發奮工作以求能在歐洲文壇獲得聲望。安徒生是個頗為自命不凡的人，在他所著的三本自傳之一的《我童話般的人生》一書中，他抱怨人們對他“嚴肅”的作品不感興趣。

　　Nowadays, of course, Hans Christian Andersen is a household name. Whether he would have liked it or not, millions of children and adults will always be grateful for the magic his stories have brought to their lives.

　　現在，漢斯·克里斯蒂安·安徒生當然是個家喻戶曉的名字。不管安徒生喜不喜歡，千千萬萬的兒童和大人會對他的故事給人生帶來的魔力永遠滿懷感激。