短篇英语美文三篇

引导语：学习英语的时候，其实多阅读一些课外英语美文，对英语能力的.提升无疑是巨大的，那么接下来是小编为你带来收集整理的短篇英语美文，欢迎阅读！

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonders, the unfailing appetite for what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart, there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, courage and power from man and from the infinite, so long as you are young.

When your aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you’ve grown old, even at 20; but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there’s hope you may die young at 80.

It is not difficult to imagine a world short of ambition. It would probably be a kinder world: with out demands, without abrasions, without disappointments. People would have time for reflection. Such work as they did would not be for themselves but for the collectivity. Competition would never enter in. conflict would be eliminated, tension become a thing of the past. The stress of creation would be at an end. Art would no longer be troubling, but purely celebratory in its functions. Longevity would be increased, for fewer people would die of heart attack or stroke caused by tumultuous endeavor. Anxiety would be extinct. Time would stretch on and on, with ambition long departed from the human heart. Ah, how unrelieved boring life would be!

There is a strong view that holds that success is a myth, and ambition therefore a sham. Does this mean that success does not really exist? That achievement is at bottom empty? That the efforts of men and women are of no significance alongside the force of movements and events now not all success, obviously, is worth esteeming, nor all ambition worth cultivating. Which are and which are not is something one soon enough learns on one’s own. But even the most cynical secretly admit that success exists; that achievement counts for a great deal; and that the true myth is that the actions of men and women are useless. To believe otherwise is to take on a point of view that is likely to be deranging. It is, in its implications, to remove all motives for competence, interest in attainment, and regard for posterity.

We don't choose to be born. We don't choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or in drift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed. In the end, forming our own destiny is what ambition is about.

Outside the Bible, these six words are the most famousin all the literature of the world. They were spokenby Hamlet when he was thinking aloud, and they are themost famous words in Shakespeare because Hamlet wasspeaking not only for himself but also for everythinking man and woman. To be or not to be, to live ornot to live, to live richly and abundantly andeagerly, or to live dully and meanly and scarcely. Aphilosopher once wanted to know whether he was aliveor not, which is a good question for everyone to putto himself occasionally. He answered it by saying: "I think, therefore am." But the best definition of existence ever saw did another philosopher who said: "To be is to bein relations." If this true, then the more relations a living thing has, the more it is alive. Tolive abundantly means simply to increase the range and intensity of our rtunately we are so constituted that we get to love our routine. But apart from our regularoccupation how much are we alive? If you are interest-ed only in your regular occupation, youare alive only to that extent. So far as other things are concerned--poetry and prose, music,pictures, sports, unselfish friendships, politics, international affairs--you are dead.

Contrariwise, it is true that every time you acquire a new interest--even more, a newaccomplishment--you increase your power of life. No one who is deeply interested in a largevariety of subjects can remain unhappy; the real pessimist is the person who has lostinterest.

Bacon said that a man dies as often as he loses a friend. But we gain new life by contacts, newfriends. What is supremely true of living objects is only less true of ideas, which are alsoalive. Where your thoughts are, there will your live be also. If your thoughts are confined onlyto your business, only to your physical welfare, only to the narrow circle of the town in whichyou live, then you live in a narrow cir-conscribed life. But if you are interested in what isgoing on in China, then you are living in China~ if you’re interested in the characters of agood novel, then you are living with those highly interesting people, if you listen intently tofine music, you are away from your immediate surroundings and living in a world of passion andimagination.

To be or not to be--to live intensely and richly, merely to exist, that depends on widen and intensify our relations. While we live, let live!