2016高中励志英语美文摘抄
励志教育在古今中外都受到重视,国外的励志教育注重让学生体验成功,实现自身价值,中国的励志教育则是传统文化教育的重要内容。小编分享2016高中励志英语美文,希望可以帮助大家!
2016高中励志英语美文:A Shining Day Will Come
by Saul K Padover
A candid statement of faith becomes, for me, a concentrated spiritual autobiography. My fundamental beliefs are the products of three converging influences that have been silently at work within my personality: history, America, and Jefferson.
As a student of history, I have been impressed again and again by man’s potentialities for good and evil. I spent my childhood in Vienna. The atmosphere of the dying Austrian Empire made me sensitive to comparative politics and history. Gradually the conviction grew in me that man everywhere, regardless of race or region or climate, is his own worst enemy or best friend. By and large, human beings themselves create their own heavens or hells. They do so because, of all the creatures on Earth, they alone have the intelligence and imagination to change their environment.
My first American home was Detroit. This great middle-western metropolis, the very essence of 20th century American industrialism, stimulated my imagination. From the inspiring history of America, I have learned what good will, intelligence, and creative application can accomplish. It is one of my beliefs that the opportunities of social and human well being in America are still inexhaustible.
And this brings me to Thomas Jefferson. His influence on my spiritual and intellectual life has been continuous and pervasive. I think I know by now every word he has ever written. I feel inside me the very rhythm of his thought. His life and personality have been, to me, sources of spiritual strength and inspiration. Jefferson never failed me in any crisis.
What I learned from him, in brief, has been an abiding faith in human potentialities. I would call this the “religion of democratic humanism.” Following Jefferson’s optimistic faith, despite examples of horrors and bloodshed in recent times, I believe that man can and should be kind and just to his fellows; that man can and should strive for constant spiritual and social improvement and to keep the avenues of opportunity always open for himself and his fellow men. To state it negatively, I believe with all my heart that cruelty, injustice, and intolerance are social crimes that should be punished as severely as physical ones.
It is a cardinal article of faith with me that there is no limit to what men in society can achieve. In this context, I believe that the good, just, and happy life cannot be accomplished in any society where power, political or economic, is monopolized in the hands of a single person or single group. I hold, with Jefferson, that only inside a democratic society, even if it is imperfect, can human beings make a successful effort to attain happiness.
And finally, I believe that all these human goals are attainable by men of all races and creeds; and that, if we use our social intelligence and the ample tools of science, a day will come when there is no bloodshed, hatred, and diseases, and no slums and no poverty, and no destructive fears of the unknown.
2016高中励志英语美文:The Hidden Vitality of Human Beings
by Newbold Morris
What has been the most appealing part of the development of the American Dream? Well, to some of us, perhaps, the most dramatic phase of our development has been the ceaseless energy of the pioneers, the era of empire building, and, finally, the apotheosis of free enterprise, our industrial development. Others are thrilled by the capacity of the American people—normally peace loving and slow to anger—to organize in an all-out effort to resist threats to their freedom.
Yes, all of these things stir the imagination, but to me they are the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual vitality. Some of us came to this continent three centuries ago and take great pride in tradition. Others may have landed at the new international airport at Idlewild only yesterday. But nearly all of us came as fugitives from the tyrannies and hatreds of the old world.
I believe America has vitality because of a restless force we call “human endeavor.” It is this endeavor which has resulted in the lifting of averages and the spreading of opportunities. It is based on the conviction that once an individual has a fair start, he or she can rise to great heights, regardless of circumstances of birth or racial origin. This is my conviction, and it is, in other words, a belief in the human spirit. It is for those who are strong to help the weak; for those who are sound in mind and body to help those afflicted; for those who live in the sunlight to dispel shadows wherever they lengthen.
To me, this is what life is all about. It is why I believe that when we decided upon a system of government-subsidized education, we passed an important milestone in our history; and that when we adopted public health programs to fight the ravages of disease, to reduce infant mortality, and even to afford prenatal care for expectant mothers, we were continuing along the road toward to the goals in which I believe.
I feel that we took another step towards a better world when we adopted Workman’s Compensation laws, Unemployment Insurance, Social Security, and Aid to Dependent Children. And I believe that we were doing even more to realize these goals when, awakening to the social evils of cheerless, unsanitary, unsafe tenements, we decided to tax ourselves in order to subsidize low-rent, public housing for persons of low income. I could not be true to my beliefs about my duty towards my fellow man if I did not work for these things. Some call our civilization a “Christian” civilization. Others call it “democracy”. When it succeeds, it is a little bit of both; and when it really works, we need not have fear of threats to our freedom.
2016高中励志英语美文:I Call Things As I See Them
by Ralph Pinelli
An umpire has to make instant decisions. I’ve learned to call things as I see them. This helps me make a quick reply to such an important and personal question as my belief. My philosophy of life is simple, with a vital, driving force: I believe in my God, my family, my country, and baseball.
Including baseball may seem out of place in this statement, but I firmly believe that baseball, more than being just a national pastime, has been officially bound up with American life, certainly with my own. It helped develop me physically as a boy. It taught me teamwork and an ability to cooperate with others. Another thing, it taught me to try to play according to the rules of the game. This has helped me throughout life.
My parents came to this country from Italy as poor immigrants. I grew up at a time when even a high school education was out of reach. My formal education never went beyond the elementary grades, but the lessons I learned at home, at church, and on the playground have carried me through. I believe firmly in higher education. My son was signed to a baseball contract when he was still in high school, but I insisted on a clause permitting him a full four-year college course before starting professional ball.
I believe that even more important than a college education, though, is the good, solid, practical, and religious training in the home and at church. My mother taught me a proper scale of values and trained me to live up to them. I still remember the sandlot game I had to leave before the final inning, so I could get on my Sunday suit and be at church in time for confirmation.
Experience has proved my belief in the importance of the family. This is where good, useful citizens come from. My wife and I have enjoyed the companionship of some 35 years of married life, and we have had the happiness of seeing our two sons grow into manhood and start their own families. We never had the pleasure of having a daughter, but now we happily share three granddaughters and five grandsons. Our happiness with them is a great consolation and comfort against the older years when many a couple grow lonely.
I have found strength and consolation in my church, and I have found peace and help in humble, daily prayer when I praise God for his goodness and ask Him to forgive me my trespasses, as I forgive others, and beg His blessings for myself, and my family and friends.
So these are the things I believe in: my God, who has given me a personal destiny and who deserves all praise and service; my family, who have given me happiness and strength; my country, which has given me every opportunity to live my life according to my conscience; and baseball, which has given me healthy recreation and solid training for life. This is my theology and philosophy of life.