Disney World
Disney World, Florida, is the biggest amusement resort in the world. It covers 24.4 thousand acres, and is twice the size of Manhattan. It was opened on October 1 1971, five years after Walt Disney’s death, and it is a larger, slightly more ambitious version of Disneyland near Los Angeles.
Foreigners tend to associate Walt Disney with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and with his other famous cartoon characters, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
There is very little that could be called vulgar in Disney World. It attracts people of most tastes and most income groups, and people of all ages, from toddlers to grandpas. There are two expensive hotels, a golf course, forest trails for horseback riding and rivers for canoeing. But the central attraction of the resort is the Magic Kingdom.
Between the huge parking lots and the Magic Kingdom lies a broad artificial lake. In the distance rise the towers of Cinderella’s Castle. Even getting to the Magic Kingdom is quite an adventure. You have a choice of transportation. You can either cross the lake on a replica of a Mississippi paddlewheeler, or you can glide around the shore in a streamlined monorail train.
When you reach the terminal, you walk straight into a little square which faces Main Street. Main Street is late 19th century. There are modern shops inside the buildings, but all the facades are of the period. There are hanging baskets full of red and white flowers, and there is no traffic except a horse-drawn streetcar and an ancient double-decker bus. Yet as you walk through the Magic Kingdom, you are actually walking on top of a network of underground roads. This is how the shops, restaurants and all other material needs of the Magic Kingdom are invisibly supplied.
What I have Lived for
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that 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, in 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 what--at last--I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. 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, helpless old people a 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 this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
Equipment
Figure it out for yourself, my lad. You have got all that the great have had: two arms, two legs, two hands, two eyes, and a brain to use if you'd be wise. With this equipment they all began, so start for the top and say" I can".
Look them over the wise and the great. They take their food from a common plate. With similar knives and forks they use; with similar laces they tie their shoes. The world considers them brave and smart, but you know--- you have got all they had when they made their start.
You can triumph and come to skill; you can be great if you only will. You are well equipped for the fight you choose you have arms and legs and brains to use. And people who have risen, great deeds to do started their lives with no more than you.
You are the handicap you must face. You are the one who must choose your place. You must say where you want to go, and how much you will study the truth to know. God has equipped you for life, but he lets you decide what you want to be.
The courage must come from the soul within; you must furnish the will to win. So figure it out for yourself, my lad; you were born with all the great have had; with your equipment they all began. Get hold of yourself and say" I can".
When we were young, we had dreams and expectations. We imagine things; we keep thinking about what we want to be, what we want to do, what makes us proud and happy and what will we become.
We grew up, and things seemed like having their own way. We accept our success or failures and we move on. The rapid change, the need to do the urgent things, the works, the pressures and the failures, all kill part of our visions.
Things have changed, but they cannot really take away the dreams. We still have to dream on, to visualize our desires, our wants, our vision of our future, even when we are considered too old for such things.
Cornell Sanders started his business when he was sixty, and started the whole successful KFC business. The main thing is not the age whether being too old, or too young, but it is the desire to dream on, and the courage to realize it.
The ability to dream on is one of the fine qualities of human race that other species do not possess. So dream on, and put a deadline: make it a giant dream, a tiny one, an old everlasting one, a new-found one, a hobby-related one, a change of life one, a religious one, a stupid one, a stroke of genius one, or just whatever... just continue to dream on... Then, Just Go and Do It!
We Were Dear to Each Other
Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away.
And yellow leaves of autumn,which have no songs,flutter and fall there with a sign.
O Troupe of little vagrants of the world,leave your footprints in my words.
The world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover.
It becomes small as one song,as one kiss of the eternal.
It is the tears of the earth that keep her smiles in bloom.
The mighty desert is burning for the love of a blade of grass who shakes her head and laughs and flies away.
If you shed tears when you miss the sun,you also miss the stars.
The sands in your way beg for your song and your movement,dancing water,Will you carry the burden of their lameless?
Her wishful face haunts my dreams like the rain at night.
Once we dreamt that we were strangers.
We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.
Prometheus
Prometheus was a Titan ．In the war between Zeus the giants he had stood on the side of the new Olympian gods．Out of the clay he made the first man，to whom Athena gave soul and holy breath．Prometheus spent a lot of time and energy in creating the gift of fire．The fire raised man above all animals ．Later，there held a joint meeting of gods and men．The meeting was to decide what part of burnt animals should be given to gods and what to men．Prometheus cut up an ox and divided it into two parts：under the skin he placed the fresh，and under the fat he put the bones，for he knew the selfish Zeus loved fat． Zeus saw through the trick and felt displeased at the Prometheus' favor towards men．So in a masterful way he took away the gift of fire from mankind．However，Prometheus managed to steal fire from heaven and secretly brought it down to men．Flying into an anger at this unjustified act of rebellion，Zeus let the other gods chain Prometheus to a rock on Mountain Caucasus，where a hungry eagle ever tore at his liver which ever grew again．His period of pain was to be thirty-thousand years．Prometheus faced his bitter fate firmly and never lost courage before Zeus．At last Heracles made Prometheus and Zeus restore to friend ship，when Heracles came over in search of the golden apple and killed the eagle and set the friend of mankind free．
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