英文版励志美文摘抄

2017-03-03

英文版励志美文摘抄

New Control Of Destiny

重新把握命运

Children used to play a game of pointing at someone, suddenly saying, “What are you?” Some people answered by saying, “I am a human being,” or by nationality, or by religion.

过去，孩子们通常会玩这样的游戏——突然指着一个人说：“你是干什么的?”有些人会回答：“我是一个人。”或回答是哪国人，或是哪个宗教的信徒。

When this question was put to me by a new generation of children, I answered, “an anthropologist.”

当新一代的孩子这样问我时，我答道：“我是一个人类学家。”

Anthropology is the study of whole ways of life, to which one must be completely committed, all the time. So that when I speak of what I believe as a person, I cannot separate this from what I believe as an anthropologist.

人类学是对人类所有生活方式的研究，需要一个人将全部的精力与时间都投入其中。所以，在谈论信仰时，我无法将自己作为一个人的信仰与作为一个人类学家的信仰区分开来。

I believe that to understand human beings it is necessary to think of them as part of the whole living world. Our essential humanity depends not only on the complex biological structure which has been developed through the ages from very simple beginnings, but also upon the great social inventions which have been made by human beings, perpetuated by human beings, and in turn give human beings their stature as builders, thinkers, statesmen, artists, seers, and prophets.

我相信，把人类看作整个世界的一部分，对了解人类是十分必要的。除了经历漫长岁月，由最初简单的生命形式发展成为的复杂生物结构，决定人性本质的因素还有人类社会的众多伟大发明。人类创造并一直使用着它们，而反过来它们也将诸如建筑师、思想家、政治家、艺术家、观察家、预言家等身份赋予了人类。

I believe that each of these great inventions—language, the family, the use of tools, government, science, art, and philosophy—has the quality of so combining the potentialities of every human temperament, that each can be learned and perpetuated by any group of human beings, regardless of race, and regardless of the type of civilization within which their progenitors lived; so that a newborn infant from the most primitive tribe in New Guinea is as intrinsically capable of graduation from Harvard, or writing a sonnet, or inventing a new form of radar as an infant born on Beacon Hill.

我坚信，这样的特性存在于每一项伟大的发明之中，比如语言、家庭、工具的使用、政府、科学、艺术和哲学，将每个人性格中的潜能巧妙地结合起来。无论任何种族、任何文明的后裔，任何一个人类群体都能学习并将它发扬光大。所以，一个新几内亚岛最原始部落的新生婴儿完全有能力从哈佛大学毕业，写出一首十四行诗或发明一种新型的雷达，就像出生在比肯山的孩子那样。

But I believe, also, that once a child has been reared in New Guinea or Boston or Leningrad or Tibet, he embodies the culture within which he is reared, and differs from those who are reared elsewhere so deeply, that only by understanding these differences can we reach an awareness which will give us a new control over our human destiny.

但我也相信，在新几内亚岛、波士顿、列宁格勒或是西藏长大的孩子，必定具备不同于他人的、属于自己国家的文化特性。这些文化特性对他们有着深远的影响，因此要想真正了解如何重新把握人类的命运，必须首先理解这些差异。

I believe that human nature is neither intrinsically good nor intrinsically evil, but individuals are born with different combinations of innate potentialities, and that it will depend upon how they are reared—to trust and love and experiment and create, or to fear and hate and conform—what kind of human beings they can become.

我相信，人性本无善恶之分，每个人生来都是先天潜能的不同组合，而决定人性善恶的是他们所接受的教育——是教育他们去信任、爱、试验和创造，还是教育他们去恐惧、仇恨和顺从——他们的人格也由此决定。

I believe that we have not even begun to tap human potentialities, and that by continuing humble but persistent study of human behavior, we can learn consciously to create civilizations within which an increasing proportion of human beings will realize more of what they have it in them to be.

我认为，人类的潜能甚至还不曾开始发挥，我相信只要以谦恭的态度坚持不懈地研究人类行为，让越来越多的人发现自身更多的潜能，我们就能自觉地学会创造文明。

I believe that human life is given meaning through the relationship which the individual’s conscious goals have to the civilization, period, and country within which one lives.

我相信，人的生命之所以有意义，正是由于其个人树立的目标与他所处的文明、时代和国家之间有着密切的联系。

At times, the task may be to fence a wilderness, to bridge a river, or rear sons to perpetuate a young colony. Today, it means taking upon ourselves the task of creating one world in such a way that we both keep the future safe and leave the future free.

也许有时，我们的任务会是为一片荒地修起围墙，为一条河架桥，或养育后代让年轻的群体延续下去。如今，为了安宁而自由的未来生活，这就意味着我们必须承担起责任，去创造一个全新的世界。

英文版励志美文鉴赏

The Debt of the Artist 艺术家的责任

by Dimitri Mitropoulos

Very early in my life, an important event took place: in my impressionable and youthful years, I discovered the personality of St. Francis. Since that time, my main ambition has been canalized into a strong desire to serve my neighbor by putting at his disposal the fruits of my knowledge, the results of my studying, the development of my innate talent, and the development of my skill as a performer; plus, my love!

My dream has always been to master myself for the sake of serving better and being of more use to my fellow man. My concern and love for him made me realize an additional responsibility, which my fame as an artist brought to me, and that is my responsibility as a human being towards those of my fellow men who might look to me for guidance.

Soon after I had the privilege to come to this country, I realized how important it was to become an example, and I will mention two events which have reinforced this, my belief.

Some years ago, during the war, I heard that the Blood Bank of the Red Cross, which served in Minneapolis and its vicinity, needed badly assistance. Naturally, they were not able to pay for all that they needed, so I decided to take my vacation by accepting this responsible job of blood custodian. I was driving in a truck to various towns within a hundred miles of Minneapolis and taking charge of setting up the Mobile Unit in each town.

The Red Cross administration thought it advisable to advertise the fact that I was working for them, in order to attract public interest. It went to the point where some people probably thought that I was going to entertain them with music during the bleeding, which I certainly would not have refused to do, in spite of the amount of work I had to do, if the doctors hadn’t forbidden such an enjoyable treatment because they wouldn’t be able to hear the pulses of the patients.

Now, the next event was during the time I was conducting the Robin Hood Dell Orchestra in Philadelphia, also during the war. There was a terrific scandal of misguided youths in the high schools mistreating and insulting Jewish boys. Nobody seemed to be able to stop this tragic epidemic, either the teachers in the schools or the preachers in the churches. Finally, Mr. Samuels, at that time the mayor, had the inspired idea of bringing a popular movie star to speak to the various schools, an event which stopped, like a miracle, all those tragedies.

From that I developed the theory that all people who have the chance to enjoy the responsibility of being famous, regardless for what reason or in what profession, can be of a terrific help in this confused world of today—and in general, I would say—by setting an example of sound moral thinking and integrity, as human beings, as well as in their profession. I came even to the point of realizing that any skill of any kind, physical or mental, or any artistic achievement, unless it is based on a moral purpose, cannot claim to have any value or any plausible reason to exist.

英文版励志美文赏析

Diogenes Didn't Need a Lamp 无需苦苦寻找诚实的人

BY DAVID LOTH

I BELIEVE in people. However much of a mess we seem to make of the world, it is people who have brought about all the progress we know, and I don't mean just material progress. All have been for-mulated and expressed by men and women. Even when people make mistakes it seems to me they usually make them from right motives. Most of us want to do good.

I believe in people because I have seen a great many of them in different parts of the world. I would rather trust my own experience and observation than the cynical remarks of unhappy men. My belief not only has given me a happy life but has made possible any really useful work I have done.

Of course I like people, too. As a newspaperman for twenty years in this country, Europe and Australia, I met all kinds of men and women and saw them under both favorable and adverse conditions. As a biographer, I learned that the people of other days were not much different than we are today. The lesson of history, both the history of the past and the history we are making on this particular day of today, is that the people's instincts are almost always right. You can trust them. Their information may be wrong and their thinking muddled, but their feelings are sound, and progress stems from this fact.

I lived in Spain at the time of the overthrow of the monarchy in 1931, and first heard of the establishment of a new republic when our cook came from the market, breathless with the news. Her very first comment, expressing what was uppermost in her mind, was given with an almost exalted look: "Seiior, now our children will learn to read and write."

It was a wonderful thing to see people animated by these ideals, carrying out a bloodless revolution. I remember a dance at which the lights were turned out during the playing of the new republican anthem "because," as one republic leader told me 7 "this is a social affair and we don't want to see who won't stand up!' That the counterrevolution was cruel and bitter does not change the fact that the people themselves in those years of progress were gentle and tolerant.

I know nothing that proves the spirit of divinity in human beings more than the press's preoccupation with evil. As a newspaperman myself, I always preferred digging into stories of violence or crime or betrayal because they were so unusual. I once wrote a history of political corruption in America, and after years of research I had to base it on fewer than one per cent of our public servants. Searching for crooks brought me into contact historically speaking with many more honest men. I hardly mentioned them in the book, but they are much more important to me than the grafters. On the day that I find myself being surprised by evidences of loyalty and Integrity and tolerance in my fellow men, then I will have lost my faith.

英文版励志美文摘抄

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