英语朗读文章.doc

英语朗读文章1. panionship of Books A man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as by the pany he keeps; for there is a panionship of books as well as of men; and one should always live in the best pany, whether it be of books or of men. A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same today that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and cheerful of panions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness; amusing and instructing us in youth, and forting and consoling us in age. Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book just as two persons sometimes discover a friend by the admiration which both entertain for a third. There is an old proverb, Love me, love my dog.” But there is more wisdom in this:” Love me, love my book.” The book is a truer and higher bond of union. Men can think, feel, and sympathize with each other through their favorite author. They live in him together, and he in them. A good book is often the best urn of a life enshrining the best that life could think out; for the world of a mans life is, for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. Thus the best books are treasuries of good words, the golden thoughts, which, remembered and cherished, bee our constant panions and forters. Books possess an essence of immortality. They are by far the most lasting products of human effort. Temples and statues decay, but books survive. Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh today as when they first passed through their authors minds, ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page. The only effect of time has been to sift out the bad products; for nothing in literature can long survive but what is really good. Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see them as if they were really alive; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them, grieve with them; their experience bees ours, and we feel as if we were in a measure actors with them in the scenes which they describe. The great and good do not die, even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens. (461 words) 2. Ambition 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. petition would never enter in, conflict would be eliminated, tension would bee 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 ones 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 petence, interest in attainment, and regard for posterity. We do not choose to be born. We do not 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. (427 words) 3. Abundance is a Life Style Abundance is a life style, a way of living your life. It isnt something you buy now and then or pull down from the cupboard, dust off and use once or twice, and then return to the cupboard. Abundance is a philosophy; it appears in your physiology, your value system, and carries its own set of beliefs. You walk with it, sleep with it, bathe with it, feel with it, and need to maintain and take care of it as well. Abundance doesnt always require money. Many people live with all that money can buy yet live empty inside. Abundance begins inside with some main self-ingredients, like love, care, kindness and gentleness, thoughtfulness and passion. Abundance is a state of being. It radiates outward. It shines like the sun among the many moons in the world. Being from the brightness of abundance doesnt allow the darkness to appear or be in the path unless a choice to allow it to. The true state of abundance doesnt have room for lies or games normally played. The space is too full of abundance. This may be a challenge because we still need to shine for other to see. Abundance is seeing people for their gifts and not what they lack or could be. Seeing all things for their gifts and not what they lack. Start by knowing what your abundances are, fill that space with you, and be fully present from that state of being. Your profession of choice is telling you of knowing and possibilities. That is their gift. Consultants and customer service professionals have the ministrative assistants and virtual assistants have an abundance of coordination and time management. Abundance is all around you, and all within. See what it is; love yourself for what it is, not what youre missing, or what that can be better, but for what it is at this present moment. Be in a state of abundance of what you already have. I guarantee they are there; it always is buried but there. Breathe them in as if they are the air you breathe because they are yours. Let go of anything that isnt abundant for the time being. Name the shoe boxes in your closet with your gifts of abundance; pull from them every morning if needed. Know they are there. Learning to trust in your own abundance is required. When you begin to be within your own space of abundance, whatever you need will appear whenever you need it. Thats just the way the higher powers set this universe up to work. Trust the universal energy. The knowing of it all will humble you to its power yet let the brightness of you shine everywhere it needs to. Just by being from a state of abundance, it is being you. (471 words)4. The Road to Success It is well that young men should begin at the beginning and occupy the most subordinate positions. Many of the leading businessmen of Pittsburgh had a serious responsibility thrust upon them at the very threshold of their career. They were introduced to the broom, and spent the first hours of their business lives sweeping out the office. I notice we have janitors and janitresses now in offices, and our young men unfortunately miss that salutary branch of business education. But if by chance the professional sweeper is absent any morning, the boy who has the genius of the future partner in him will not hesitate to try his hand at the broom. It does not hurt the newest er to sweep out the office if necessary. I was one of those sweepers myself. Assuming that you have all obtained employment and are fairly started, my advice to you is “aim high”. I would not give a fig for the young man who does not already see himself the partner or the head of an important firm. Do not rest content for a moment in your thoughts as head clerk, or foreman, or general manager in any concern, no matter how extensive. Say to yourself, “My place is at the top.” Be king in your dreams. And here is the prime condition of success, the great secret: concentrate your energy, thought, and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged. Having begun in one line, resolve to fight it out on that line, to lead in it, adopt every improvement, have the best machinery, and know the most about it. The concerns which fail are those which have scattered their capital, which means that they have scattered their brains also. They have investments in this, or that, or the other, here, there and everywhere. “Dont put all your eggs in one basket.” is all wrong. I tell you to “put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.” Look round you and take notice, men who do that not often fail. It is easy to watch and carry the one basket. It is trying to carry too many baskets that breaks most eggs in this country. He who carries three baskets must put one on his head, which is apt to tumble and trip him up. One fault of the American businessman is lack of concentration. To summarize what I have said: aim for the highest; never enter a bar room; do not touch liquor, or if at all only at meals; never speculate; never indorse beyond your surplus cash fund; make the firms interest yours; break orders always to save owners; concentrate; put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket; expenditure always within revenue; lastly, be not impatient, for as Emerson says, “no one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourselves.” (485 words)5. Giving Life Meaning Have you thought about what you want people to say about you after youre gone? Can you hear the voice saying, “He was a great man.” Or “She really will be missed.” What else do they say? One of the strangest phenomena of life is to engage in a work that will last long after death. Isnt that a lot like investing all your money so that future generations can bare interest on it? Perhaps, yet if you look deep in your own heart, youll find something drives you to make this kind of contributionsomething drives every human being to find a purpose that lives on after death. Do you hope to memorialize your name? Have a name that is whispered with reverent awe? Do you hope to have your face carved upon 50 feet of granite rock? Is the answer really that simple? Is the purpose of lifetime contribution an ego-driven desire for a mortal being to have an immortal name or is it something more? A child alive today will die tomorrow. A baby that had the potential to be the next Einstein will die from plication at birth. The circumstances of life are not set in stone. We are not all meant to live life through to old age. Weve grown to perceive life as a full cycle with a certain number of years in between. If all of those years arent lived out, its a tragedy. A tragedy because a humans potential was never realized. A tragedy because a spark was snuffed out before it ever became a flame. By virtue of inhabiting a body we accept these risks. We expose our mortal flesh to the laws of the physical environment around us. The trade off isnt so bad when you think about it. The problem es when we construct mortal fantasies of what life should be like. When life doesnt conform to our fantasy we grow upset, frustrated, or depressed. We are alive; let us live. We have the ability to experience; let us experience. We have the ability to learn; let us learn. The meaning of life can be grasped in a moment. A moment so brief it often evades our perception. What meaning stands behind the dramatic unfolding of life? What single truth can we grasp and hang onto for dear life when all other truths around us seem to fade with time? These moments are strung together in a series we call events. These events are strung together in a series we call life. When we seize the moment and bend it according to our will, a will driven by the spirit deep inside us, then we have discovered the meaning of life, a meaning for us that shall go on long after we depart this Earth. (467 words) 6. To Be or Not to Be Outside the Bible, these six words are the most famous in all the literature of the world. They were spoken by Hamlet when he was thinking aloud, and they are the most famous words in Shakespeare because Hamlet was speaking not only for himself but also for every thinking man and woman. To be or not to be, to live or not to live, to live richly and abundantly and eagerly, or to live dully and meanly and scarcely. A philosopher once wanted to know whether he was alive or not, which is a good question for everyone to put to himself occasionally. He answered it by saying: I think, therefore I am. But the best definition of existence ever was done by another philosopher who said: To be is to be in relations. If this true, then the more relations a living thing has, the more it is alive. To live abundantly means simply to increase the range and intensity of our relations. Unfortunately we are so constituted that we get to love our routine. But apart from our regular occupation how much are we alive? If you are interested only in your regular occupation, you are alive only to that extent. So far as other things are concernedpoetry and prose, music, pictures, sports, unselfish friendships, politics, international affairsyou are dead. Contrariwise, it is true that every time you acquire a new interesteven more, a new acplishmentyou increase your power of life. No one who is deeply interested in a large variety of subjects can remain unhappy; the real pessimist is the person who has lost interest. Bacon said that a man dies as often as he loses a friend. But we gain new life by contacts, new friends. What is supremely true of living objects is only less true of ideas, which are also alive. Where your thoughts are, there will your live be also. If your thoughts are confined only to your business, only to your physical welfare, only to the narrow circle of the town in which you live, then you live in a narrow circonscribed life. But if you are interested in what is going on in China, then you are living in China; if youre interested in the characters of a good novel, then you are living with those highly interesting people; if you lis