英語(yǔ)四級(jí)美文
1、life is to be whole人生在于完整
Once a circle missed a wedge. The circle wanted to be whole，so it went around looking for its missing piece．But because it was incomplete and therefore could roll only very slowly，it admired the flowers along the way．It chatted with worms．It enjoyed the sunshine．It found lots of different pieces，but none of them fit．So it left them all by the side of the road and kept on searching．Then one day the circle found a piece that fit perfectly．It was so happy．Now it could be whole，with nothing missing．It incorporated the missing piece into itself and began to roll．Now that it was a perfect circle，it could roll very fast，too fast to notice the flowers or talking to the worms．When it realized how different the world seemed when it rolled so quickly，it stopped，left its found piece by the side of the road and rolled slowly away．
The lesson of the story，I suggested，was that in some strange sense we are more whole when we are missing something．The man who has everything is in some ways a poor man．He will never know what it feels like to yearn，to hope，to nourish his soul with the dream of something better．He will never know the experience of having someone who loves him give him something he has always wanted or never had．
There is a wholeness about the person who has come to terms with his limitations，who has been brave enough to let go of his unrealistic dreams and not feel like a failure for doing so．There is a wholeness about the man or woman who has learned that he or she is strong enough to go through a tragedy and survive，who can lose someone and still feel like a complete person．
Life is not a trap set for us by God so that he can condemn us for failing．Life is not a spelling bee，where no matter how many words you've gotten right，you're disqualified if you make one mistake．Life is more like a baseball season，where even the best team loses one－third of its games and even the worst team has its days of brilliance．Our goal is to win more games than we lose．
When we accept that imperfection is part of being human，and when we can continue rolling through life and appreciate it，we will have achieved a wholeness that others can only aspire to．That，I believe，is what God asks of us－－not “Be perfect”，not “Don't even make a mistake”，but “Be whole．”
If we are brave enough to love，strong enough to forgive，generous enough to rejoice in another's happiness，and wise enough to know there is enough love to go around for us all，then we can achieve a fulfillment that no other living creature will ever know．
從前有一只圓圈缺了一塊楔子。圓圈想保持完整，便四處尋找失去的那塊楔子。由于它不完整，所以只能滾動(dòng)很慢。一路上，它對(duì)花兒露出羨慕之色。它與蠕蟲(chóng)談天侃地。它還欣賞到了陽(yáng)光之美。圓圈找到了許許多多不同的配件，但是沒(méi)有一件能完美地與它相配。所以，它將它們統(tǒng)統(tǒng)棄置路旁，繼續(xù)尋覓。終于有一天，它找到了一個(gè)完美的配件。圓圈是那樣地高興，現(xiàn)在它可以說(shuō)是完美無(wú)缺了。它裝好配件，然后滾動(dòng)起來(lái)。既然它已成了一個(gè)完整的圓圈，所以滾動(dòng)得非常快，快得以至于無(wú)暇觀賞花兒，也無(wú)暇與蠕蟲(chóng)傾訴心聲。圓圈快奔急騁，發(fā)現(xiàn)眼中的世界變得如此不同，于是，它不禁停了下來(lái)，將找到的那個(gè)配件留在路旁，又開(kāi)始了慢慢地滾動(dòng)。
我覺(jué)得這個(gè)故事告訴我們，從某種奇妙意義上講，當(dāng)我們失去了一些東西時(shí)反而感到更加完整。一個(gè)擁有一切的人其實(shí)在某些方面是個(gè)窮人。他永遠(yuǎn)也體會(huì)不到什么是渴望、期待以及對(duì)美好夢(mèng)想的感悟。他也永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)有這樣一種體驗(yàn)：一個(gè)愛(ài)他的人送給他某種他夢(mèng)寐以求的或者從未擁有過(guò)的東西意味什么。
人生的完整性在于一個(gè)人知道如何面對(duì)他的缺陷，如何勇敢地摒棄那些不現(xiàn)實(shí)的幻想而又不以此為缺憾。人生的完整性還在于一個(gè)男人或女人懂得這樣一個(gè)道理：他（她）發(fā)現(xiàn)自己能勇敢面對(duì)人生悲劇而繼續(xù)生存，能夠在失去親人后依然表現(xiàn)出一個(gè)完整的人的風(fēng)范。
人生不是上帝為譴責(zé)我們的缺陷而給我們布下的陷阱。人生也不是一場(chǎng)拼字游戲比賽。不管你拼出多少單詞，一旦出現(xiàn)了一個(gè)錯(cuò)誤，你便前功盡棄。人生更像是一個(gè)棒球賽季。即使最好的球隊(duì)比賽也會(huì)輸?shù)簦保常畈畹那蜿?duì)也有春風(fēng)得意的日子。我們的目標(biāo)就是多贏球，少輸球。
我們接受了不完整性是人類(lèi)本性的一部分，我們不斷地進(jìn)行人生滾動(dòng)并能意識(shí)到其價(jià)值，我們就會(huì)完成完整人生的過(guò)程。而對(duì)于別人來(lái)講，這只能是一個(gè)夢(mèng)想。我相信這就是上帝對(duì)我們的要求：不求“完美”，也不求“永不犯錯(cuò)誤”，而是求得人生的“完整”。
如果我們勇敢得能夠去愛(ài)，堅(jiān)強(qiáng)得能夠去寬容，大度得能夠去分享他人的幸福，明智得能夠理解身邊充滿(mǎn)愛(ài)，那么我們就能取得別的生物所不能取得的成就。
2、Competition
It is a plain fact that we are in a world where competition is going on in all areas and at all levels.This is exciting.Yet, on the other hand, competition breeze a pragmatic attitude.People choose to learn things that are useful,and do things that are profitable.Todays' college education is also affected by this general sense of utilitarianism. Many college students choose business nor computing programming as their majors convinced that this professions are where the big money is. It is not unusual to see the college students taking a part time jobs as a warming up for the real battle.I often see my friends taking GRE tests, working on English or computer certificates and taking the driving licence to get a licence. Well, I have nothing against being practical. As the competition in the job market gets more and more intense, students do have reasons to be practical. However, we should never forget that college education is much more than skill training. Just imagine, if your utilitarianism is prevails on campus, living no space for the cultivation of students' minds,or nurturing of their soul. We will see university is training out well trained spiritless working machines.If utilitarianism prevails society, we will see people bond by mind-forged medicals lost in the money-making ventures;we will see humality lossing their grace and dignity, and that would be disastrous.I'd like to think society as a courage and people persumed for profit or fame as a horese that pulls the courage.Yet without the driver picking direction the courage would go straight and may even end out in a precarious situation .A certificate may give you some advantage, but broad horizons, positive attitudes and personal integrities ,these are assets you cannot acquire through any quick fixed way.In today's world, whether highest level of competition is not of skills or expertise , but vision and strategy. Your intellectual quality largely determinds how far you can go in your career.
3、Chinese Undergraduates in the US
Each year, elite American universities and liberal arts colleges, such as Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Amherst and Wellesley, offer a number of scholarships to Chinese high school graduates to study in their undergraduate programs. Four years ago, I received such a scholarship from Yale.
What are these Chinese undergrads like? Most come from middle-class families in the big urban centers of China. The geographical distribution is highly skewed, with Shanghai and Beijing heavily over-represented. Outside the main pool, a number of Yale students come from Changsha and Ningbo,swhereseach year American Yale graduates are sent to teach English.
The overwhelming majority of Chinese undergraduates in the US major in science, engineering or economics. Many were academic superstars in their high schools - gold medallists in international academic Olympiads or prize winners in national academic contests. Once on US campuses, many of them decide to make research a lifelong commitment.
Life outside the classroom constitutes an important part of college life. At American universities the average student spends less than thirteen hours a week in class. Many Chinese students use their spare time to pick up some extra pocket money. At Yale, one of the most common campus jobs is washing dishes in the dining halls. Virtually all Chinese undergraduates at Yale work part-time in the dining halls at some point in their college years. As they grow in age and sophistication, they upgrade to better-paying and less stressful positions. The more popular and interesting jobs include working as a computer assistant, math homework grader, investment office assistant and lab or research assistant. The latter three often lead to stimulating summer jobs.
Student activities are another prominent feature of American college life. Each week there are countless student-organized events of all sorts - athletic, artistic, cultural, political or social (i.e. just for fun). New student organizations are constantly being created, and Chinese undergrads contribute to this ferment. Sport looms much larger on US campuses than in China. At Yale, intramural sports from soccer to water polo take place all year long; hence athletic talent is a real social asset. One of the Chinese students at Yale several years ago was a versatile sportsman. His athletic talents and enthusiastic participation in sporting events, combined with his other fine qualities, made him a popular figure in his residential college.
4、I Want to Know
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!
It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
It doesn’t interest me who you are, how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, without moving to hide it
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.
I want to know if you can see beauty , if you can source your life from god’s presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”
5、Beauty
there were a sensitivity and a beauty to her that have nothing to do with looks. She was one to be listened to, whose words were so easy to take to heart.
I have thought about her often over the years and how she struggled in a society that places an incredible premium on looks, class, wealth and all the other fineries of life. She suffered from a disfigurement that cannot be made to look attractive. I know that her condition hurt her deeply.
Would her life have been different had she been pretty? Chances are it would have. And yet there were a sensitivity and a beauty to her that had nothing to do with looks. She was one to be listened to, whose words were so easy to take to heart. Her words came from a wounded but loving heart, very much like all hearts, but she had more of a need to be aware of it, to live with it and learn from it. She possessed a fine-tuned sense of beauty. Her only fear in life was the loss of a friend.
It is said that the true nature of being is veiled. The labor of words, the expression of art, the seemingly ceaseless buzz that is human thought all have in common the need to get at what really is so. The hope to draw close to and possess the truth of being can be a feverish one. In some cases it can even be fatal, if pleasure is one's truth and its attainment more important than life itself. In other lives, though, the search for what is truthful gives life.
The truth of her life was a desire to see beyond the surface for a glimpse of what it is that matters. She found beauty and grace and they befriended her, and showed her what is real.
6、Work and Pleasure
To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real. It is no use starting late in life to say: “I will take an interest in this or that.” Such an attempt only aggravates the strain of mental effort. A man may acquire great knowledge of topics unconnected with his daily work, and yet hardly get any benefit or relief. It is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do. Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes: those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death. It is no use offering the manual labourer, tired out with a hard week’s sweat and effort, the chance of playing a game of football or baseball on Saturday afternoon. It is no use inviting the politician or the professional or business man, who has been working or worrying about serious things for six days, to work or worry about trifling things at the weekend.
It may also be said that rational, industrious useful human beings are divided into two classes: first, those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure; and secondly, those whose work and pleasure are one. Of these the former are the majority. They have their compensations. The long hours in the office or the factory bring with them as their reward, not only the means of sustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and most modest forms. But Fortune’s favoured children belong to the second class. Their life is a natural harmony. For them the working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays when they come are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation. Yet to both classes the need of an alternative outlook, of a change of atmosphere, of a diversion of effort, is essential. Indeed, it may well be that those whose work is their pleasure are those who most need the means of banishing it at intervals from their minds.
工作和娛樂(lè)
要想獲得真正的快樂(lè)與安寧，一個(gè)人應(yīng)該有至少兩三種愛(ài)好，而且必須是真正的愛(ài)好。到晚年才說(shuō)“我對(duì)什么什么有興趣”是沒(méi)用的，這只會(huì)徒然增添精神負(fù)擔(dān)。一個(gè)人可以在自己工作之外的領(lǐng)域獲得淵博的知識(shí)，不過(guò)他可能幾乎得不到什么好處或是消遣。做你喜歡的事是沒(méi)用的，你必須喜歡你所做的事。總的來(lái)說(shuō)，人可以分為三種：勞累而死的、憂(yōu)慮而死的、和煩惱而死的。對(duì)于那些體力勞動(dòng)者來(lái)說(shuō)，經(jīng)歷了一周精疲力竭的體力勞作，周六下午讓他們?nèi)ヌ咦闱蚧蛘叽虬羟蚴菦](méi)有意義的。而對(duì)那些政治家、專(zhuān)業(yè)人士或者商人來(lái)說(shuō)，他們已經(jīng)為嚴(yán)肅的事情操勞或煩惱六天了，周末再讓他們?yōu)楝嵤聞谏褚彩菦](méi)有意義的。
也可以說(shuō)，那些理性的、勤勉的、有價(jià)值的人們可分為兩類(lèi)，一類(lèi)，他們的.工作就是工作，娛樂(lè)就是娛樂(lè)；而另一類(lèi)，他們的工作即娛樂(lè)。大多數(shù)人屬于前者，他們得到了相應(yīng)的補(bǔ)償。長(zhǎng)時(shí)間在辦公室或工廠(chǎng)里的工作，回報(bào)給他們的不僅是維持了生計(jì)，還有一種強(qiáng)烈的對(duì)娛樂(lè)的需求，哪怕是最簡(jiǎn)單的、最樸實(shí)的娛樂(lè)。不過(guò)，命運(yùn)的寵兒則屬于后者。他們的生活很自然和諧。對(duì)他們來(lái)說(shuō)，工作時(shí)間永遠(yuǎn)不嫌長(zhǎng)。每天都是假日，而當(dāng)正常的假日來(lái)臨時(shí)，他們總是埋怨自己所全身心投入的休假被強(qiáng)行中斷了。不過(guò)，有些事情對(duì)兩類(lèi)人是同樣至關(guān)重要的，那就是轉(zhuǎn)換一下視角、改變一下氛圍、將精力轉(zhuǎn)移到別的事情上。確實(shí)，對(duì)那些工作即是娛樂(lè)的人來(lái)說(shuō)，最需要隔一段時(shí)間就用某種方式把工作從腦子里面趕出去。
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