經典的英文美文欣賞
經典的英文美文欣賞
英語美文誦讀有利于培養(yǎng)學生的英語語感,提高學生表達的準確性,豐富學生的英語口頭表達內容,發(fā)展學生的英語聽、說、寫能力。小編精心收集了經典的英文美文,供大家欣賞學習!
經典的英文美文篇1
葛底斯堡演說
Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation,conceived in liberty,and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now, we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation,or any nation soconceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of thatwar.We have come to dedicate a portionof that field as a final resting-place for those who heregave their lives that that nation might live. Itis altogether fitting and proper that we should dothis.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate,we cannot consecrate,we cannot hallow,thisground. The bravemen, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above ourpower to add or detract.The world will little note nor long remember what we say here,but it cannever forget what they did here.It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to theunfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.It is rather forus to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us,that from these honored deadwe take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure ofdevotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall no have died in vain; that thisnation,under God, shall have a new birth of freedom;and that government of the people, by thepeople, and for thepeople, shall not perish from the earth.
八十七年前,我們的先輩們在這個大陸上創(chuàng)立了一個新的國家,她孕育于自由的理念之中,奉行一切人生來平等的原則。
現(xiàn)在,我們正在進行一場偉大的內戰(zhàn),以考驗這個國家,或者任何一個孕育于自由和奉行上述原則的國家是否能夠長久存在下去。 我們在這場戰(zhàn)爭中的一個偉大戰(zhàn)場上集會。我們來到這里,就是要把這個戰(zhàn)場的一部分奉獻給那些為了國家的生存而捐軀的人們,使其成為他們最后的安息之所。我們這樣做是完全應該而且是非常恰當?shù)摹?/p>
但是,從更廣泛的意義上來說,這塊土地我們不能夠奉獻,不能夠圣化,不能夠神化。那些曾在這里戰(zhàn)斗過的勇士們,活著的和死去的,已經把這塊土地圣化了,這遠不是我們微薄的力量所能增減的。我們今天在這里所說的話,全世界不大會注意,也不會長久地記住,但是勇士們在這里的豐功偉績,全世界卻永遠不會忘記。毋寧說,倒是我們這些還活著的人,應該在這里把自己奉獻給勇士們 已經如此崇高地向前推進但尚未完成的事業(yè)。倒是我們應該在這 里把自己奉獻于仍然留在我們面前的偉大任務我們要從這些 光榮的犧牲者身上汲取更多的獻身精神,來完成他們已經完全徹底為之獻身的事業(yè);我們要在這里下定最大的決心,不讓這些烈士們白白犧牲;我們要使國家在上帝福佑下得到自由的新生,要使這個民有、民治、民享的政府永世長存。
經典的英文美文篇2
沃爾瑪發(fā)跡妙訣
How did a peddler of cheap shirts and fishing rods become the mightiest corporation inAmerica?The short version of Wal-Mart’s rise to glory goes something like this:In 1979 itracked up a billion dollars in sales. By 1993 it did that much business in a week;by 2001 it coulddo it in a day.
It’s a stunning tale - one that propelled Wal-Mart from rural Arkansas, where it was founded in1962,to the top of the Fortune 500 this year. Sam Walton, Wal-Mart’s founder,pushed salesgrowth relentlessly while squeezing costs with sophisticated information technology.Heexhorted employees to sell better with the“ten foot rule” (greet customers if they are thatclose).He was, in other words, an early evangelist forthe first commandment of today’seconomy: Service rules.Wal-Mart, in fact, is the first service company to rise to the top of theFortune 500.When Fortune first published its list of the largest companies in America in 1955,Wal-Mart didn’t even exist.That year General Motors was America’s biggest company, and inevery year that followed, either GM or another mighty industrial, Exxon, was NO. 1.
Wal-Mart’s achievement caps a bigger economic shift - from producing goods to providingservices.Manufacturing’s share of U.S. employment peaked in 1953, at 35%.It has beendeclining steadily since. In the decade that will end in 2010,the Bureau of Labor Statisticsfigures that goods producing industries will create 1.3 million new jobs,compared to 20 millionfor service industries.To look at it another way, today there are about four times as manypeople working in service jobs as in other kinds of jobs.And even within manufacturing, servicesare an increasingly large share of operations.
As America got richer consumption got more complicated. With more income to throwaround,people started spending more on services movies and travel, mortgages to buy houses,insurance to protect those houses,the occasional decadent weekend at a luxuryhotel.Economists call this a shift in the demand pattern;Fortune calls it the main reason that64 of this year’s top 100 are service companies.Over the next few years, only three of the tenfastest growing occupations (software engineers, nurses,and computer support) pay middleclass salaries.The rest could be called, well, Wal-Mart kinds of jobs - cashiers, retail assistants,food service, and so on. In short, the service economy is delivering more good jobs than everbefore.
一個出售廉價襯衣和釣魚竿的商販是如何成為美國實力最強的公司的?沃爾瑪百貨公司的發(fā)跡史可以濃縮為以下三個階段:1979年它全年的銷售額為10億美元;到1993年,一周就能達到這個數(shù)額;在2001年僅需一天之功。
這是一個驚人的傳奇故亊——這家1962年始創(chuàng)于阿肯色州鄉(xiāng)村地區(qū)的沃爾瑪百貨公司在今年一躍登上了〈財禽>500強的榜首。公司創(chuàng)始人薩姆·沃爾頓一面千方百計提高銷售額, 一面以先進的信息技術降低成本。他以嚴格的"10英尺規(guī)則” (向在這距離之內的顧客致意)鼓勵員工提高銷售業(yè)績。換句話說,他是當今經濟戒律——服務規(guī)則——的第一位傳道者。事實上,沃爾瑪百貨公司是第一個躍居(財富>500強榜首的服 務業(yè)公司。1955年,當《財富〉雜志第一次公布美國最大公司的排名時,沃爾瑪甚至尚未問世。那一年,通用汽車公司是美國最 大的公司,此后不是通用汽車公司就是另一個大公司——???森公司獨占鰲頭。
沃爾瑪?shù)某删瓦€標志著一個更重要的經濟轉變——從生產商品向提供服務的轉變。1953年美國制造業(yè)的就業(yè)人數(shù)占總 就業(yè)人數(shù)的比例達到歷史最高點——35%。從此就開始逐年下降。根據勞工統(tǒng)計局的數(shù)據,到2010年底的未來10年間,制造業(yè)將創(chuàng)造130萬個就業(yè)機會,而服務業(yè)創(chuàng)造的就業(yè)機會將高達 2000萬個。換一個角度看,今天在服務業(yè)中工作的人數(shù)大約是其他行業(yè)的4倍。即使在制造業(yè)中,服務在業(yè)務經營中所占的比例也越來越大。
隨著美國人富裕程度的曰益增高,消費也變得越來越復雜。人們開始把更多的錢花在接受服務方面看電彩、旅游、抵押 貸款買房、為房屋保險、偶爾到豪華飯店度個奢侈的周末。經濟學家稱這種現(xiàn)象為需求變化;〈財富〉雜志則認為這是本年度評出的100家最大公司中有64家是服務業(yè)公司的主要原因。在未來幾年中,10種發(fā)展最快的職業(yè)中只有3種(軟件工程、護士 和電腦支持)能夠提供中等收入。其余都可稱作沃爾瑪式的職業(yè)——收銀員、售貨員、食品服務,以及諸如此類的職業(yè)。總之, 同過去相比,服務業(yè)正在提供更多相當不錯的就業(yè)機會。
經典的英文美文篇3
讀書之樂
All the wisdom of the ages, all the stories that have delighted mankind for centuries,are easilyand cheaply available to all of us within the covers of books but we must know how to availourselves of this treasure and how to get the most from it.The most unfortunate people in theworld are those who have never discovered how satisfying it is to read good books.
I am most interested in people, in them and finding out about them.Some of the mostremarkable people I’ve met existed only in a writer’s imagination,then on the pages of hisbook, and then, again, in my imagination.I’ve found in books new friends, new societies, newwords.
If I am interested in people, others are interested not so much in who as in how.Who in thebooks includeseverybody from science fiction superman two hundred centuries in the future allthe way back to the first figures in history.How covers everything from the ingeniousexplanations of Sherlock Holmes to the discoveries of science and ways of teaching manner tochildren.
Reading is pleasure of the mind, which means that it is a little like a sport:your eagerness andknowledgeand quickness make you a good reader. Reading is fun,not because the writer istelling you something, but because it makes your mind work.Your own imagination works alongwith the author’s or even goes beyond his.Your experience, compared with his, brings you tothe same or different conclusions,and your ideas develop as you understand his.
Every book stands by itself, like a one-family house,but books in a library are like houses in acity. Although they are separate, together they all add up to something, they are connectedwith each other and with other cities.The same ideas, or related ones, turn up in differentplaces;the human problems that repeatthemselves in life repeat themselves in literature,but withdifferent solutions according to different writings at different times.Books influence each other;they link the past, the present and the future and have their own generations,likefamilies.Wherever you start reading you connect yourself with one of the families of ideas, andin the long run,you not only find out about the world and the people in it; you find out aboutyourself, too.
Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tellsyou you “ought”to read,you probably won’t have fun. But if you put down a book you don’t likeand try another till you find one that means something to you, and then relax with it, you willalmost certainly have a good tim and if you become, as a result of reading,better, wiser, kinder,or more gentle, you won’t have suffered during the process.
人類世世代代全部的聰明才智,幾百年來愉悅人們的所有故事,都可以輕易而實惠地從書中獲得??墒?,我們必須要懂得如何利用這一寶藏,進而獲得最大收益。世界上最不幸的人就是那些從未體會到閱讀佳作是多么令人心滿意足的人。
我對人很感興趣,對他們個人以及發(fā)掘他們同樣興趣十足。我所碰到的一些卓越的人物只能到作家的想像之中去尋找,然后又體現(xiàn)在作家的作品中,最后又出現(xiàn)在我的想像之中。我在書中結識了新朋友,拓展了社會知識,也學到了新的語言。
如果說我是對人感興趣,那么其他人的興趣則是關注“怎 樣”而不是“誰"的問題。書中的"誰"所包括的人物可謂豐寓多彩,不僅有科幻小說中描寫的兩萬年之后的超人,還可以追溯到人類歷史的幵端。而書中的"怎樣"所記錄的事情也是千奇百怪,從對福爾摩斯偵探故事的巧妙敘述到科學發(fā)現(xiàn)以及管教孩子的方法。
讀書是一種思維享受,也就是說有點像體育運動。善于讀書的人需要強烈的求知欲、豐富的知識和敏捷的反應。讀書之所以是一種樂趣,并不在于作者告訴你什么,而是由于讀書使你積極思考。在作者的引導之下,你的想像任意馳騁,甚至超越作者的想像。對比作者的經歷,你會得出自己的結論,也許相同,也許相悖,而隨著你對作者思想的逐步理解,你也會變得越來越深刻。
每一部書都獨立存在,猶如獨門獨戶的房子。而圖書館中的書籍則像城市中的建筑。盡管它們各成一體,但是卻共同構成一個整體。不僅它們之間相互關聯(lián),而且也與其他城市相互聯(lián)系。相同或者相關的看法在不同的地方出現(xiàn)。文學作品中反映的就是人們生活中經常出現(xiàn)的事情,但是在不同時期作者的處理方式卻大相徑庭。書籍之間也相互影響,它們傳承過去,體現(xiàn)現(xiàn)在,預測未來,相互聯(lián)系,代代相傳,形成各個家族。不管你從何處讀起,都會有一種觀點與你的相符。從長遠來看,你不僅從書中了解世界,體驗別人的生活,你也會認識你自己。
只有你誠心讀書,閱讀才會成為一種樂趣。假如你讀的是別人認為“該”讀的書,你很有可能覺得索然無味。假如你放下自己不喜歡的書,另試一本,直到發(fā)現(xiàn)自己覺得有意義的書,然后心情輕松地讀下去,你肯定會感到心情暢快。假如你因閱讀 而變得更為高尚、聰明、善良、文雅,那讀書的過程就不再是一種負擔了。
看了“經典的英文美文”的人還看了: