八年級下冊初中英語美文賞讀

　　學生英語素質的培養應該注重經典美文閱讀在中學生英語教育的比重,充分發揮經典美文對中學生英語素養提升潛移默化的作用。下面是小編帶來的，歡迎閱讀!

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　　Of Studies

　　Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them bothers; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things.

　　Reading make a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtitle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.

　　讀書足以怡情，足以***，足以長才。其怡情也，最見於獨處幽居之時;其傅彩也，最見於高談闊論之中;其長才也，最見於處世判事之際。練達之士雖能分別處理細事或一一判別枝節，然縱觀統籌、全域性策劃，則舍好學深思者莫屬。讀書費時過多易惰，文采藻飾太盛則矯，全憑條文斷事乃學究故態。讀書補天然之不足，經驗又補讀書之不足，蓋天生才幹猶如自然花草，讀書然後知如何修剪移接;而書中所示，如不以經驗範之，則又大而無當。有一技之長者鄙讀書，無知者羨讀書，唯明智之士用讀書，然書並不以用處告人，用書之智不在書中，而在書外，全憑觀察得之。讀書時不可存心詰難作者，不可盡信書上所言，亦不可只為尋章摘句，而應推敲細思。書有可淺嘗者，有可吞食者，少數則須咀嚼消化。換言之，有隻須讀其部分者，有隻須大體涉獵者，少數則須全讀，讀時須全神貫注，孜孜不倦。書亦可請人代讀，取其所作摘要，但只限題材較次或價值不高者，否則書經提煉猶如水經蒸餾、淡而無味矣。

　　讀書使人充實，討論使人機智，筆記使人準確。因此不常作筆記者須記憶特強，不常討論者須天生聰穎，不常讀書者須欺世有術，始能無知而顯有知。讀史使人明智，讀詩使人靈秀，數學使人周密，科學使人深刻，倫理學使人莊重，邏輯修辭之學使人善辯

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　　How to Be Ture to Yourself

　　My grandparents believed you were either honest or you weren't. There was no in between. They had a simple motto hanging on their living-room wall: "Life is like a field of newly fallen snow; where I choose to walk every step will show." They didn't have to talk about it – they demonstrated the motto by the way they lived.

　　They understood instinctively that integrity means having a personal standard of morality and ethics that does not sell out to expediency and that is not relative to the situation at hand. Integrity is an inner standard for judging your behavior. Unfortunately, integrity is in short supply today – and getting scarcer. But it is the real bottom line in every area of society. And it is something we must demand of ourselves.

　　A good test for this value is to look at what I call the Integrity Triad, which consists of three key principles:

　　1.Stand firmly for your convictions in the face of personal pressure. There's a story told about a surgical nurse's first day on the medical team at a well-known hospital. She was responsible for ensuring that all instruments and materials were accounted for during an abdominal operation. The nurse said to the surgeon, "You've only remove 11 sponges, and we sued 12. We need to find the last one. "

　　"I removed them all," the doctor declared. "We'll close now."

　　"You can't do that, sir," objected the rookie nurse. "Think of the patient." Smiling, the surgeon lifted his foot and showed the nurse the 12th sponge.

　　"You'll do just fine in this or any other hospital," he told her. When you know you're right, you can't back down.

　　2.Always give others credit that is rightfully theirs. Don't be afraid of those who might have a better idea or who might even be smarter than you are.

　　David Ogilvy, founder of the advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather, made this point clear of his newly appointed office head by sending each a Russian nesting doll with five progressively smaller figures inside. His message was contained in the smallest doll:

　　"If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, Ogilvy & Mather will become a company of giants." And that is precisely that the company became – one of the largest and most respected advertising organizations in the world.

　　3.Be honest and open about who you really are. People who lack genuine core values rely on external factors – their looks or status – in order to feel good about themselves. Inevitably they will do everything they can to preserve this façade, but they will do every little to develop their inner value and personal growth.

　　So be yourself. Don't engage in a personal cover-up of areas that are unpleasing in your life. When it's tough, do it tough. In other words, face reality and be adult in your responses to life's challenges.

　　我的祖父母認為, 人要麼誠實, 要麼不誠實. 不可能居於兩者之間. 他們在起居室的牆上掛著一幅簡短的箴言: “生活就像剛被白雪覆蓋的原野, 無論走到哪兒, 都會出現我的腳印.” 他們從不在口頭上做文章----而是身體力行去實踐這句箴言.

　　他們本能地懂得, 誠實意味著有個人道德標準, 既不見利忘義, 也不趨炎附勢. 誠實是評判舉止的內在標準. 遺憾的是, 當今社會越練越缺少誠信, 而它卻是社會每一個領域的真正底線, 也是我們對自己的必須要求.

　　檢驗這種價值, 要依據我所謂的”誠實三和絃”, 它包括三個主要原則:

　　面對個人壓力, 要堅定信念. 有這樣一個故事: 在一個著名的醫院, 一個外科護士第一天到醫療組上班. 在一個腹部手術中, 她負責對所有的器材進行清點時, 對外科醫生說: “您只取出11塊紗布, 可我們用了12塊, 必須找到最後一塊.

　　“我都取出來了,” 醫生斷言, “現在要縫合刀口了.”

　　“您不能這樣, 先生,” 新來的護士抗議道, “得想想病人,” 外科醫生抬起腳, 笑著給護士看第12塊紗布.

　　他告訴護士: “不論你是在這所醫院還是其他地方, 都會幹得很好的.” 當你確定自己正確時, 就不能退縮.

　　經常讚揚那些值得肯定的人. 不要懼怕那些比你更有見解, 更機智的人.

　　戴維.奧格爾維是奧格爾維和馬瑟廣告公司的創始人, 他給每一個新上任的部門經理送一個俄羅斯式套娃, 裡面有一次變小的5個娃娃. 最小的一個裡面有他的留言, 清晰地告訴他們:

　　“如果我們僱用的每個人都比我們矮小, 我們就會成為侏儒公司. 但是, 反過來, 如果僱用的人都很高大, 奧格爾維和馬瑟將成為巨人公司.” 正是這樣, 這個公司後來成為世界上最達最有聲望的廣告公司.

　　真誠, 坦率地展現真我風采. 只有缺乏核心價值觀的人才會依靠外界因素----他們的外貌或地位 ---- 使自我感覺良好. 不可避免地, 他們會掩飾內心, 不去培養自己的核心價值, 也不注重自我成長.

　　所以, 要做你自己. 不要掩飾生活中不盡人意的方方面面, 要堅強地面對生活中的困難時刻. 換言之, 面對現實, 要成熟地應對生活中的種種挑戰.

　　學習

　　Suppose Someone Gave You a Pen

　　Suppose someone gave you a pen — a sealed, solid-colored pen. You couldn’t see how much ink it had. It might run dry after the first few tentative words or last just long enough to create a masterpiece ***or several*** that would last forever and make a difference in the scheme of things. You don’t know before you begin. Under the rules of the game, you really never know. You have to take a chance!

　　Actually, no rule of the game states you must do anything. Instead of picking up and using the pen, you could leave it on a shelf or in a drawer where it will dry up, unused. But if you do decide to use it, what would you do with it? How would you play the game? Would you plan and plan before you ever wrote a word? Would your plans be so extensive that you never even got to the writing? Or would you take the pen in hand, plunge right in and just do it, struggling to keep up with the twists and turns of the torrents of words that take you where they take you? Would you write cautiously and carefully, as if the pen might run dry the next moment, or would you pretend or believe ***or pretend to believe*** that the pen will write forever and proceed accordingly?

　　And of what would you write: Of love? Hate? Fun? Misery? Life? Death? Nothing? Everything? Would you write to please just yourself? Or others? Or yourself by writing for others? Would your strokes be tremblingly timid or brilliantly bold? Fancy with a flourish or plain? Would you even write? Once you have the pen, no rule says you have to write. Would you sketch? Scribble? Doodle or draw? Would you stay in or on the lines, or see no lines at all, even if they were there? Or are they?

　　There's a lot to think about here, isn't there?

　　Now, suppose someone gave you a life...

　　假如有人送你一支筆，一支不可拆卸的單色鋼筆。

　　看不出裡面究竟有多少墨水。或許在你試探性地寫上幾個字後它就會枯乾，或許足夠用來創作一部影響深遠的不朽鉅著***或是幾部***。而這些，在動筆前，都是無法得知的。 在這個遊戲規則下，你真的永遠不會預知結果。你只能去碰運氣!

　　事實上，這個遊戲裡沒有規則指定你必須要做什么。相反，你甚至可以根本不去動用這支筆，把它扔在書架上或是抽屜裡讓它的墨水乾枯。 但是，如果你決定要用它的話，那麼你會用它來做什么呢?你將怎么來進行這個遊戲呢?你會不寫一個字，老是計劃來計劃去嗎?你會不會由於計劃過於巨集大而來不及動筆呢?或者你只是手裡拿著筆，一頭扎進去寫，不停地寫，艱難地隨著文字洶湧的浪濤而隨波逐流? 你會小心謹慎的寫字，好象這支筆在下一個時刻就可能會乾枯;還是裝做或相信這支筆能夠永遠寫下去而信手寫來呢?

　　你又會用筆寫下些什麼呢：愛?恨?喜?悲?生?死?虛無?萬物?你寫作只是為了愉己?還是為了悅人?抑或是借替人書寫而愉己?你的落筆會是顫抖膽怯的，還是鮮明果敢的?你的想象會是豐富的還是貧乏的?甚或你根本沒有落筆?這是因為，你拿到筆以後，沒有哪條規則說你必須寫作。也許你要畫素描，亂寫一氣?信筆塗鴉?畫畫?你會保持寫線上內還是線上，還是根本看不到線，即使有線在那裡?嗯，真的有線嗎?

　　這裡面有許多東西值得考慮，不是嗎?

　　現在，假如有人給予你一支生命的筆……