經典英文文章

　　英文寫作是英文語言輸出的一種重要形式，它能反映學生的英文綜合能力。下面就是小編給大家整理的，希望大家喜歡。

　　：Hold your head up high 昂起你的頭

　　I was fifteen months old, a happy carefree***無憂無慮的*** kid until the day I fell. It was a bad fall. I landed on a glass rabbit which cut my eye badly enough to blind it. Trying to save the eye, the doctors stitched***縫紉，裝訂*** the eyeball together where it was cut, leaving a big ugly scar in the middle of my eye. The attempt failed, but my mama, in all of her wisdom, found a doctor who knew that if the eye were removed entirely, my face would grow up badly distorted***扭曲的*** , so my scarred, sightless, cloudy and gray eye lived on with me. And as I grew, this sightless eye in so many ways controlled me.

　　I walked with my face looking at the floor so people would not see the ugly me. Sometimes people, even strangers, asked me embarrassing questions or made hurtful remarks. When the kids played games, I was always the "monster." I grew up imagining that everyone looked at me with disdain***蔑視*** , as if my appearance were my fault. I always felt like I was a freak.

　　Yet Mama would say to me, at every turn, "Hold your head up high and face the world." It became a litany***冗長而枯燥的陳述*** that I relied on. She had started when I was young. She would hold me in her arms and stroke my hair and say, "If you hold your head up high, it will be okay, and people will see your beautiful soul." She continued this message whenever I wanted to hide.

　　Those words have meant different things to me over the years. As a little child, I thought Mama meant, "Be careful or you will fall down or bump into something because you are not looking." As an adolescent, even though I tended to look down to hide my shame, I found that sometimes when I held my head up high and let people know me, they liked me. My mama's words helped me begin to realize that by letting people look at my face, I let them recognize the intelligence and beauty behind both eyes even if they couldn't see it on the surface.

　　In high school I was successful both academically and socially. I was even elected class president, but on the inside I still felt like a freak. All I really wanted was to look like everyone else. When things got really bad, I would cry to my mama and she would look at me with loving eyes and say, "Hold your head up high and face the world. Let them see the beauty that is inside."

　　When I met the man who became my partner for life, we looked each other straight in the eye, and he told me I was beautiful inside and out***從裡到外地，徹底地*** . He meant it. My mama's love and encouragement were the spark that gave me the confidence to overcome my own doubt. I had faced adversity***逆境，不幸*** , encountered my problems head on, and learned not only to appreciate myself but to have deep compassion for others.

　　"Hold your head up high," has been heard many times in my home. Each of my children has felt its invitation. The gift my mama gave me lives on in another generation.

　　：Never sell your soul 不要出賣自己的靈魂

　　My fellow job seekers: I am honored to be among the first to congratulate you on completing your years at North Carolina A&T. But all of you should know: as Mother's Day gifts go, this one is going to be tough to beat in the years ahead.

　　The purpose of a commencement***畢業典禮，開始*** speaker is to dispense***分配，免除*** wisdom. But the older I get, the more I realize that the most important wisdom I've learned in life has come from my mother and my father. Before we go any further, let's hear it one more time for your mothers and mother figures, fathers and father figures, family, and friends in the audience today.

　　When I first received the invitation to speak here, I was the CEO of an $80 billion Fortune 11 company with 145,000 employees in 178 countries around the world. I held that job for nearly six years. It was also a company that hired its fair share of graduates from North Carolina A&T. You could always tell who they were. For some reason, they were the ones that had stickers***貼紙，尖刀*** on their desks that read, "Beat the Eagles."

　　But as you may have heard, I don't have that job anymore. After the news of my departure broke, I called the school, and asked: do you still want me to come and be your commencement speaker?

　　Chancellor Renick put my fears to rest. He said, "Carly, if anything, you probably have more in common with these students now than you did before." And he's right. After all, I've been working on my resume. I've been lining up my references. I bought a new interview suit. If there are any recruiters***招聘人員，徵兵人員*** here, I'll be free around 11.

　　I want to thank you for having me anyway. This is the first public appearance I've made since I left HP. I wanted very much to be here because this school has always been set apart by something that I've believed very deeply; something that takes me back to the earliest memories I have in life.

　　One day at church, my mother gave me a small coaster***杯託，小托盤*** with a saying on it. During my entire childhood, I kept this saying in front of me on a small desk in my room. In fact, I can still show you that coaster today. It says: "What you are is God's gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God."

　　Those words have had a huge impact on me to this day. What this school and I believe in very deeply is that when we think about our lives, we shouldn't be limited by other people's stereotypes or bigotry. Instead, we should be motivated by our own sense of possibility. We should be motivated by our own sense of accomplishment. We should be motivated by what we believe we can become. Jesse Jackson has taught us; Ronald McNair taught us; the Greensboro Four taught us; that the people who focus on possibilities achieve much more in life than people who focus on limitations.

　　The question for all of you today is: how will you define what you make of yourself?

　　To me, what you make of yourself is actually two questions. There's the "you" that people see on the outside. And that's how most people will judge you, because it's all they can see what you become in life, whether you were made President of this, or CEO of that, the visible you.

　　But then, there's the invisible you, the "you" on the inside. That's the person that only you and God can see. For 25 years, when people have asked me for career advice, what I always tell them is don't give up what you have inside. Never sell your soul. Because no one can ever pay you back.

　　What I mean by not selling your soul is don't be someone you're not, don't be less than you are, don't give up what you believe, because whatever the consequences that may seem scary or bad -- whatever the consequences of staying true to yourself are -- they are much better than the consequences of selling your soul.

　　You have been tested mightily in your life to get to this moment. And all of you know much better than I do: from the moment you leave this campus, you will be tested. You will be tested because you won't fit some people's pre-conceived notions or stereotypes of what you're supposed to be, of who you're supposed to be. People will have stereotypes of what you can or can't do, of what you will or won't do, of what you should or shouldn't do. But they only have power over you if you let them have power over you. They can only have control if you let them have control, if you give up what's inside.

　　I speak from experience. I've been there. I've been there, in admittedly***公認地，明白地*** vastly different ways -- and in many ways, in the fears in my heart, exactly the same places. The truth is I've struggled to have that sense of control since the day I left college.

　　I was afraid the day I graduated from college. I was afraid of what people would think. Afraid I couldn't measure up***合格，符合標準*** . I was afraid of making the wrong choices. I was afraid of disappointing the people who had worked so hard to send me to college.

　　：Someone making decisions for me

　　These days, there are so many choices to labor through, from the most basic, such as paper or plastic at the grocery***食品雜貨店*** checkout counter, to the nearly suicide-inducing, such as the friends-and-family plan or unlimited texting.

　　In these tough times, the abundance of life-changing decisions—finances, health care, career moves—can be overwhelming***壓倒性的，勢不可擋的*** . But don’t take it from me. Ask the guy who wrote the book The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making. That would be Scott Plous, a psychology professor at Wesleyan University. “There’s no question that we have more choices than ever before,” Plous agreed. “And decisions are generally harder and more time-consuming when there are lots of alternatives.”

　　Even Steve Jobs, whose technology allows us the misery of 18,000 music selections in our pockets, has to counteract so many choices by wearing the same outfit—blue jeans, black turtleneck***高領翻毛衣*** , New Balance sneakers—every single day of his life. With every move you make, you’re bombarded with predicaments***窘況，困境*** from the banal to the extraordinary, and you obviously can’t trust yourself to make the right decisions anymore—look where that’s gotten you.

　　I know I’m not alone in this. We’re all feeling a little needy. Whom can we turn to? Friends and family always have their own agendas; therapists are useless. So, who’s left?

　　Strangers, of course. They’re everywhere.

　　“Excuse me,” I said to the woman behind me one morning in the queue at Dunkin’ Donuts. “I’m currently asking strangers to make all my decisions. Would you mind picking out a dozen doughnuts***甜甜圈*** for me?”

　　“I’ll order two, but then you’re on your own,” she said.

　　“Never mind.”

　　Everyone knows the first two doughnuts are the easy ones.

　　“I’ll do it, but you’ll have to tell me what you like,” a gangly***身材瘦長的*** woman who had overheard theprevious exchange said.

　　“Thanks, but that kind of defeats my purpose,” I responded. “As long as you’re paying,” a thick-armed guy shrugged at me just as it was his turn to order.

　　He attacked the chore with glee***快樂，歡欣*** . His choices were a blur of glaze and frosting. He stopped only once, looked back at me and said, “Sprinkles, two sprinkles,” and they fell into the box with the majesty of a fireworks grand finale.

　　It was a win-win, a successful random act of indecision***優柔寡斷，猶豫不決*** ***RAI***. And I was striking a blow for science. “Your experiment will reveal how much pleasure in a dessert comes from it simply being a dessert, rather than a dessert that you would have chosen,” Plous had observed. “In many cases, the difference in benefit between two choices is smaller than we’d guess.”

　　This may be the best idea I’ve ever had. For two weeks, I relinquished***放棄，放手*** control over my decisions. I turned the reins***腎臟，腰部*** over to perfect strangers.

　　At a Starbucks, I was perspiring***流汗*** heavily from a bike ride when I started to ask the woman beside me what I wanted to drink. She cut me off midway through my spiel***流利誇張的講話*** about how I was conducting a social experiment and whatnot***放古董的架子，不可名狀的東西*** .

　　“Just have a water,” she said, snatching a bottle from the front case and thrusting it at me.

　　She herself ordered something that took the barista***咖啡師*** 11 moves to make, but I was suddenly a model of simplicity: a sweaty man drinking cold water.

　　Moments later, I asked a man at the newsstand if I should become a night shaver instead of a morning shaver. I always wanted to be a night shaver—go to bed cleanly shaven and wake up with sexy stubble***發茬，須茬*** that would be alluring***誘惑的*** until at least noon and...

　　“Absolutely not,” the gentleman said.

　　I’m sure he’s right.

　　Later in the day, when I asked a sandy-haired woman at Old Navy to pick out a shirt for me, she quickly devoted herself to the cause.

　　“I want you to have a crisper***保鮮盒*** , cleaner look,” she exclaimed.

　　I was still feeling crisp and clean when I stopped at the library. The mission: to give a stranger the chore of selecting a book for me to read.

　　“You sure? Picking out a book... that’s kind of an intimate decision,” the chosen one said. She was sitting at a tiny table with a little boy and looking up at me as if I were one more irritation in an already long day. But once I said I was positive, she popped up as if she’d just adopted me.