精選雙語美文賞析
優美的文字於細微處傳達出美感,並浸潤著人們的心靈。通過英語美文,不僅能夠感受語言之美,領悟語言之用,還能產生學習語言的興趣。度過一段美好的時光,即感悟生活,觸動心靈。下面是小編為大家帶來,希望大家喜歡!
精選雙語美文:生命在時間的土壤裡成長
What I believe, what I value most, is transitoriness.
短暫是我的信仰,也是我認為最重要的東西。
But is not transitoriness - the perishableness of life - something very sad? No! It is the very soul of existence. It imparts value, dignity, interest to life. Transitoriness creates time - and "time is the essence." Potentially at least, time is the supreme, most useful gift.
然而短暫,如生命的消逝,不是非常哀傷的事情嗎?不!它正是生命存在的精髓。它賦予了生命價值、尊嚴和情趣。短暫創造了時間——而“時間正是其本質”。至少,時間是至高的,是最有用的禮物。
Time is related to - yes, identical with - everything creative and active, every process toward a higher goal.
時間與所有富有創造力和活力的事物,及每一個達到更高目標的進步息息相關——是的,它甚至等同於這一切。
Without transitoriness, without beginning or end, birth or death, there is no time, either. Timelessness - in the sense of time never ending, never beginning - is a stagnant nothing. It is absolutely uninteresting.
沒有短暫,沒有開始與結束、生與死,時間也就不復存在。永恆是毫無意義的停滯,它意味著時間永遠沒有結束,也永遠沒有開始,絕對令人乏味。
Life is possessed by tremendous tenacity. Even so its presence remains conditional, and as it had a beginning, so it will have an end. I believe that life, just for this reason, is exceedingly enhanced in value, in charm.
生命頑強無比。即便如此,它的存在也依賴於一定的條件,正如它有始亦有終。也因如此,我堅信,生命的價值與魅力將會不斷地增長。
One of the most important characteristics distinguishing man from all other forms of nature is his knowledge of transitoriness, of beginning and end, and therefore of the gift of time.
人同自然界其他事物之間最重要的區別之一就是,人懂得短暫、始與終,所以也瞭解時間是一種恩賜。
In man transitory life attains its peak of animation, of soul power, so to speak. This does not mean alone would have a soul. Soul quality pervades all beings. But man's soul is most awake in his knowledge of the interchangeability of the term "existence" and "transitoriness".
可以這麼說,在人身上,短暫的生命達到了其活力與精神力量的巔峰。這並不是說只有人擁有靈魂。萬物皆有靈性。但是對於“存在”與“短暫”的可互換性,只有人的大腦才能最清楚地意識到。
To man time is given like a piece of land, as it were, entrusted to him for faithful tilling; a space in which to strive incessantly, achieve self-realization, more onward and upward. Yes, with the aid of time, man becomes capable of wresting the immortal from the mortal.
對於人類來說,時間就如賜予的一片土地,等待他去辛勤耕種;是一個讓他不斷奮鬥進取,實現自我價值,不斷前進向上的空間。是的,在時間的幫助下,人可以從有限的生命中獲得永恆。
Deep down, I believe - and deem such belief natural to every human soul - that in the university prime significance must be attributed to this earth of ours. Deep down I believe that creation of the universe out of nothingness and of life out of inorganic state ultimately aimed at the creation of man. I believe that man is meant as a great experiment whose possible failure of man's own guilt would be paramount to the failure of creation itself.
在內心深處,我相信宇宙中最為重要的當屬我們的地球,並認為這樣的信念存在於每一個人的心中。從內心深處,我相信混沌中宇宙的創造,無機中生命的萌芽,最終都是為了創造人類。我相信人類本身便是一項偉大的實驗,它可能會因人類自身的罪惡而失敗,但這也成為創造本身最主要的失敗。
Whether this belief be true or not, man would be well advised if he behaved as though it were.
無論這個信仰是否真實,人類如果能依此行事,將會獲得更為有益的忠告。
精選雙語美文:重新把握命運
Children used to play a game of pointing at someone, suddenly saying, “What are you?” Some people answered by saying, “I am a human being,” or by nationality, or by religion.
過去,孩子們通常會玩這樣的遊戲——突然指著一個人說:“你是幹什麼的?”有些人會回答:“我是一個人。”或回答是哪國人,或是哪個宗教的信徒。
When this question was put to me by a new generation of children, I answered, “an anthropologist.”
當新一代的孩子這樣問我時,我答道:“我是一個人類學家。”
Anthropology is the study of whole ways of life, to which one must be completely committed, all the time. So that when I speak of what I believe as a person, I cannot separate this from what I believe as an anthropologist.
人類學是對人類所有生活方式的研究,需要一個人將全部的精力與時間都投入其中。所以,在談論信仰時,我無法將自己作為一個人的信仰與作為一個人類學家的信仰區分開來。
I believe that to understand human beings it is necessary to think of them as part of the whole living world. Our essential humanity depends not only on the complex biological structure which has been developed through the ages from very simple beginnings, but also upon the great social inventions which have been made by human beings, perpetuated by human beings, and in turn give human beings their stature as builders, thinkers, statesmen, artists, seers, and prophets.
我相信,把人類看作整個世界的一部分,對了解人類是十分必要的。除了經歷漫長歲月,由最初簡單的生命形式發展成為的複雜生物結構,決定人性本質的因素還有人類社會的眾多偉大發明。人類創造並一直使用著它們,而反過來它們也將諸如建築師、思想家、政治家、藝術家、觀察家、預言家等身份賦予了人類。
I believe that each of these great inventions—language, the family, the use of tools, government, science, art, and philosophy—has the quality of so combining the potentialities of every human temperament, that each can be learned and perpetuated by any group of human beings, regardless of race, and regardless of the type of civilization within which their progenitors lived; so that a newborn infant from the most primitive tribe in New Guinea is as intrinsically capable of graduation from Harvard, or writing a sonnet, or inventing a new form of radar as an infant born on Beacon Hill.
我堅信,這樣的特性存在於每一項偉大的發明之中,比如語言、家庭、工具的使用、政府、科學、藝術和哲學,將每個人性格中的潛能巧妙地結合起來。無論任何種族、任何文明的後裔,任何一個人類群體都能學習並將它發揚光大。所以,一個新幾內亞島最原始部落的新生嬰兒完全有能力從哈佛大學畢業,寫出一首十四行詩或發明一種新型的雷達,就像出生在比肯山的孩子那樣。
But I believe, also, that once a child has been reared in New Guinea or Boston or Leningrad or Tibet, he embodies the culture within which he is reared, and differs from those who are reared elsewhere so deeply, that only by understanding these differences can we reach an awareness which will give us a new control over our human destiny.
但我也相信,在新幾內亞島、波士頓、列寧格勒或是西藏長大的孩子,必定具備不同於他人的、屬於自己國家的文化特性。這些文化特性對他們有著深遠的影響,因此要想真正瞭解如何重新把握人類的命運,必須首先理解這些差異。
I believe that human nature is neither intrinsically good nor intrinsically evil, but individuals are born with different combinations of innate potentialities, and that it will depend upon how they are reared—to trust and love and experiment and create, or to fear and hate and conform—what kind of human beings they can become.
我相信,人性本無善惡之分,每個人生來都是先天潛能的不同組合,而決定人性善惡的是他們所接受的教育——是教育他們去信任、愛、試驗和創造,還是教育他們去恐懼、仇恨和順從——他們的人格也由此決定。
I believe that we have not even begun to tap human potentialities, and that by continuing humble but persistent study of human behavior, we can learn consciously to create civilizations within which an increasing proportion of human beings will realize more of what they have it in them to be.
我認為,人類的潛能甚至還不曾開始發揮,我相信只要以謙恭的態度堅持不懈地研究人類行為,讓越來越多的人發現自身更多的潛能,我們就能自覺地學會創造文明。
I believe that human life is given meaning through the relationship which the individual’s conscious goals have to the civilization, period, and country within which one lives.
我相信,人的生命之所以有意義,正是由於其個人樹立的目標與他所處的文明、時代和國家之間有著密切的聯絡。
At times, the task may be to fence a wilderness, to bridge a river, or rear sons to perpetuate a young colony. Today, it means taking upon ourselves the task of creating one world in such a way that we both keep the future safe and leave the future free.
也許有時,我們的任務會是為一片荒地修起圍牆,為一條河架橋,或養育後代讓年輕的群體延續下去。如今,為了安寧而自由的未來生活,這就意味著我們必須承擔起責任,去創造一個全新的世界。