1、If I Rest, I Rust_To Be or Not to Be_ 11英语背诵美文 30篇目录第一篇：Youth 青春 第二篇： Three Days to See(Excerpts)假如给我三天光明（节选）第三篇：Companionship of Books 以书为伴（节选） 第四篇：If I Rest, I Rust 如果我休息，我就会生锈 第五篇：Ambition 抱负 第六篇：What I have Lived for 我为何而生 第七篇：When Love Beckons You 爱的召唤 第八篇：The Road to Success 成功之道 第九篇：On Meetin
2、g the Celebrated 论见名人 第十篇：The 50-Percent Theory of Life 生活理论半对半 第十一篇：What is Your Recovery Rate? 你的恢复速率是多少？第十二篇：Clear Your Mental Space 清理心灵的空间 第十三篇：Be Happy 快乐 第十四篇：The Goodness of life 生命的美好 第十五篇：Facing the Enemies Within 直面内在的敌人 If I Rest, I Rust_To Be or Not to Be_ 22第十六篇：Abundance is a Life Sty
3、le 富足的生活方式 第十七篇：Human Life a Poem 人生如诗 第十八篇：Solitude 独处 第十九篇：Giving Life Meaning 给生命以意义 第二十篇：Relish the Moment 品位现在 第二十一篇：The Love of Beauty 爱美 第二十二篇：The Happy Door 快乐之门 第二十三篇：Born to Win 生而为赢 第二十四篇：Work and Pleasure 工作和娱乐 第二十五篇：Mirror, Mirror-What do I see 镜子,镜子,告诉我 第二十六篇：On Motes and Beams 微尘与栋梁 第
4、二十七篇：An October Sunrise 十月的日出 第二十八篇：To Be or Not to Be 生存还是毁灭 第二十九篇：Gettysburg Address 葛底斯堡演说 第三十篇：First Inaugural Address(Excerpts) 就职演讲（节选）If I Rest, I Rust_To Be or Not to Be_ 331 Youth YouthYouth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple
5、 knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more tha
6、n a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human beings heart
7、 the lure of wonders, the unfailing appetite for whats next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart, there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, courage and power from man and from the infinite, so long as you are young. When your
8、 aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then youve grown old, even at 20; but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, theres hope you may die young at 80. If I Rest, I Rust_To Be or Not to Be_ 442 Three Days to See(Excerpts)T
9、hree Days to SeeAll of us have read thrilling stories in which the hero had only a limited and specified time to live. Sometimes it was as long as a year, sometimes as short as 24 hours. But always we were interested in discovering just how the doomed hero chose to spend his last days or his last ho
10、urs. I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice, not condemned criminals whose sphere of activities is strictly delimited.Such stories set us thinking, wondering what we should do under similar circumstances. What events, what experiences, what associations should we crowd into those last hou
11、rs as mortal beings, what regrets?Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. We should live each day with gentleness, vigor and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when
12、 time stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come. There are those, of course, who would adopt the Epicurean motto of “Eat, drink, and be merry”. But most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death.In stories the doomed hero is usually sa
13、ved at the last minute by some stroke of fortune, but almost always his sense of values is changed. He becomes more appreciative of the meaning of life and its permanent spiritual values. It has often been noted that those who live, or have lived, in the shadow of death bring a mellow sweetness to e
14、verything they do.Most of us, however, take life for granted. We know that one day we must die, but usually we picture that day as far in the future. When we are in buoyant If I Rest, I Rust_To Be or Not to Be_ 55health, death is all but unimaginable. We seldom think of it. The days stretch out in a
15、n endless vista. So we go about our petty tasks, hardly aware of our listless attitude toward life.The same lethargy, I am afraid, characterizes the use of all our faculties and senses. Only the deaf appreciate hearing, only the blind realize the manifold blessings that lie in sight. Particularly do
16、es this observation apply to those who have lost sight and hearing in adult life. But those who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the fullest use of these blessed faculties. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sounds hazily, without concentration and with little a
17、ppreciation. It is the same old story of not being grateful for what we have until we lose it, of not being conscious of health until we are ill.I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkn
18、ess would make him more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound.If I Rest, I Rust_To Be or Not to Be_ 663 Companionship of Books Companionship of BooksA man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as by the company he keeps; for there is a companionship of books a
19、s well as of men; and one should always live in the best company, 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 companions. It does not turn its back upon us in
20、times of adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness; amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting 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 adm
21、iration 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 toget
22、her, 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, be
23、come our constant companions and comforters. 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 a
24、uthors 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 have been to sift out the bad products; for nothing in literature can long survive e but what is really good.Books introduce us into the best society; they brin
25、g us into the presence of the If I Rest, I Rust_To Be or Not to Be_ 77greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see the as if they were really alive; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them, grieve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were in
26、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 on still listens.4 If I Rest, I Rust If I Rest, I RustThe significant inscription foun
27、d on an old key-“If I rest, I rust”-would be an excellent motto for those who are afflicted with the slightest bit of idleness. Even the most industrious person might adopt it with advantage to serve as a reminder that, if one allows his faculties to rest, like the iron in the unused key, they will
28、soon show signs of rust and, ultimately, cannot do the work required of them.Those who would attain the heights reached and kept by great men must keep their faculties polished by constant use, so that they may unlock the doors of knowledge, the gate that guard the entrances to the professions, to s
29、cience, art, literature, agriculture-every department of human endeavor.Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasury of achievement. If Hugh Miller, after toiling all day in a quarry, had devoted his evenings to rest and recreation, he would never have become a famous geologist. The celebra
30、ted mathematician, Edmund Stone, would never have published a mathematical dictionary, never have found the key to science of mathematics, if he had given his spare moments to idleness, had the little Scotch lad, Ferguson, allowed the busy brain to go to sleep while he tended sheep on the hillside i
31、nstead of calculating the position of the stars by a string of beads, he would never have become a famous astronomer.Labor vanquishes all-not inconstant, spasmodic, or ill-directed labor; but If I Rest, I Rust_To Be or Not to Be_ 88faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose.
32、Just as truly as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry the price of noble and enduring success. 5 Ambition AmbitionIt is not difficult to imagine a world short of ambition. It would probably be a kinder world: with out demands, without abrasions, without disappointments.
33、People would have time for reflection. Such work as they did would not be for themselves but for the collectivity. Competition would never enter in. conflict would be eliminated, tension become a thing of the past. The stress of creation would be at an end. Art would no longer be troubling, but pure
34、ly 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
35、 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
36、, 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 a
37、re 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 competence, interest in attainment, and regard for posterity.If I Rest, I Rust_To Be or Not to Be_ 99We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our
38、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: courage
39、ously 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,
40、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.6 What I have Lived for What I Have Lived ForThree passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life
41、: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.I have sought love, first, because it bring
42、s ecstasy-ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of my life for a few hours for this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness-that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless
43、 abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what-at last-I have found.With equal passion
44、I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.Love and knowledge, so far as they were po
45、ssible, led upward toward the If I Rest, I Rust_To Be or Not to Be_ 1010heavens. But always it brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of lonel
46、iness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.7 When Love Beckons You When Love Beckons YouWhen love
47、beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you, yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you, believe in him, though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.For even a
48、s love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to our roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.But if, in your fear, you would seek only loves peace and loves pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of loves threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your l
