高中經典英語勵志美文摘抄

　　針對學生的獨特性,勵志教育可以通過課堂勵志、讀書勵志,專題講座、報告勵志,校園文化勵志,社會實踐勵志等途徑,幫助學生樹立自信、自立、自制與自強的信念,激發其潛能,努力創造條件實現自己的理想和人生目標。小編分享高中經典英語勵志美文，希望可以幫助大家!

　　高中經典英語勵志美文：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.

　　人們行善是為了什麼?

　　艾娜.科林娜.布朗

　　人類的信仰並非全是通過言辭或形式的教條，以及對一個人行為習慣的設想或其做出選擇所依據的價值觀所體現出來的。

　　孩提時，父母的教誨正是我個人基本價值觀的來源，他們相信人格是一切之首。他們從不問：“人們會怎麼想?”而是問：“如果你做這件事而不做那件，你會怎麼想?”因此，按自己的意願生活便成為了最基本的價值觀，而“人們會怎麼想?”這個問題則退居二線。

　　從某種程度上來說，第二條基礎價值觀就是對第一條的延伸，這是我從一位大學老教授那裡瞭解到的。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：“你要比發生在你身上的苦難更為強大;面對不幸的態度比你所遭受的不幸更為重要。這一點很重要。”

　　慢慢地，我瞭解到，這正是人類擁有真正安全感與平和心態的基礎。即使自己並無任何過錯，也沒有人確切地知道，災難、失望、不公或羞辱何時會降臨到自己的頭上，而且也沒人敢保證自己不會犯錯、不會失敗。但是，我們可以選擇面對生活的方式。當我們選擇正直、堅韌、尊嚴與同情時，任何不幸的威脅都無法影響到我們。

　　當你接受了前兩條基本的價值觀，也就能夠接受這第三條。如果一個人堅持自我以及自己的生活方式，那他就不會為他人的金錢、地位與權利所動，也不會以人們的種族、膚色或社會地位來評價他們。

　　全新的人際關係世界就此開啟了。因為，當友誼基於思想與人品時，老人與青年、富人與窮人、名人與普通人、受過良好教育的人、目不識丁者，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值觀，第四條自然就無法避免。它是一個人協助創造社會秩序的責任與義務。在這個社會秩序中，人比物重要，思想比精巧的器具重要，個人的價值是以人的基本原則為基礎的。

　　此外，為保證這個評判的公正，人類必須有機會全面發展自身的能力。於是，社會組織與機構便致力於使世界各地的人們認識到他們最大的潛能，並引導人們為創造一個自由公平的世界而工作。

　　也許，所有這一切加起來就形成了一種信仰，那就是人類如何實現自我價值。我們人類之所以優於動物，是因為人擁有自覺控制自身需求與慾望的能力。人類必須考慮食物與自身的需求，必須保護自身與親人不受傷害，但是這些行為並不只限於人類。很多動物都擁有這方面的本能。當我們膜拜、祈禱或感動時;當我們欣賞畫作、夕陽或奏鳴曲時;當我們思考推理、追隨靈感、尋求真相或閱讀一本書時;當我們保護弱者與無助的人時;當我們尊敬高尚的人、心懷行善的願望時;當我們為建設更美好的世界與他人合作時;我們的行為才使我們無愧於“人類”這個稱呼。

　　高中經典英語勵志美文：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.

　　高中經典英語勵志美文：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.