高中英語美文短篇閱讀欣賞

高中英語閱讀積累是關(guān)鍵，多讀一些英語美文，慢慢就能提高自己的英語閱讀水平。下面是小編整理的高中英語美文短篇閱讀欣賞，具體內(nèi)容如下。

高中英語美文短篇閱讀欣賞

If I Rest, I Rust

The significant inscription found 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 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 science, 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 celebrated 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 instead 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 faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose. Just as truly as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry the price of noble and enduring success.

高中英語美文短篇閱讀欣賞譯文：

如果我休息，我就會生銹

在一把舊鑰匙上發(fā)現(xiàn)了一則意義深遠(yuǎn)的銘文——如果我休息，我就會生銹。對于那些懶散而煩惱的人來說，這將是至理名言。甚至最為勤勉的人也以此作為警示：如果一個人有才能而不用，就像廢棄鑰匙上的鐵一樣，這些才能就會很快生銹，并最終無法完成安排給自己的工作。

有些人想取得偉人所獲得并保持的成就，他們就必須不斷運用自身才能，以便開啟知識的大門，即那些通往人類努力探求的各個領(lǐng)域的大門，這些領(lǐng)域包括各種職業(yè)：科學(xué)，藝術(shù)，文學(xué)，農(nóng)業(yè)等。

勤奮使開啟成功寶庫的鑰匙保持光亮。如果休?米勒在采石場勞作一天后，晚上的時光用來休息消遣的話，他就不會成為名垂青史的地質(zhì)學(xué)家。著名數(shù)學(xué)家愛德蒙?斯通如果閑暇時無所事事，就不會出版數(shù)學(xué)詞典，也不會發(fā)現(xiàn)開啟數(shù)學(xué)之門的鑰匙。如果蘇格蘭青年弗格森在山坡上放羊時，讓他那思維活躍的大腦處于休息狀態(tài)，而不是借助一串珠子計算星星的位置，他就不會成為著名的天文學(xué)家。

勞動征服一切。這里所指的勞動不是斷斷續(xù)續(xù)的，間歇性的或方向偏差的勞動，而是堅定的，不懈的，方向正確的每日勞動。正如要想擁有*就要時刻保持警惕一樣，要想取得偉大的，持久的成功，就必須堅持不懈地努力。

高中英語美文短篇閱讀欣賞

On Meeting the Celebrated

I have always wondered at the passion many people have to meet the celebrated. The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account. The celebrated develop a technique to deal with the persons they come across. They show the world a mask, often an impressive on, but take care to conceal their real selves. They play the part that is expected from them, and with practice learn to play it very well, but you are stupid if you think that this public performance of theirs corresponds with the man within.

I have been attached, deeply attached, to a few people; but I have been interested in men in general not for their own sakes, but for the sake of my work. I have not, as Kant enjoined, regarded each man as an end in himself, but as material that might be useful to me as a writer. I have been more concerned with the obscure than with the famous. They are more often themselves. They have had no need to create a figure to protect themselves from the world or to impress it. Their idiosyncrasies have had more chance to develop in the limited circle of their activity, and since they have never been in the public eye it has never occurred to them that they have anything to conceal. They display their oddities because it has never struck them that they are odd. And after all it is with the common run of men that we writers have to deal; kings, dictators, commercial magnates are from our point of view very unsatisfactory. To write about them is a venture that has often tempted writers, but the failure that has attended their efforts shows that such beings are too exceptional to form a proper ground for a work of art. They cannot be made real. The ordinary is the writer’s richer field. Its unexpectedness, its singularity, its infinite variety afford unending material. The great man is too often all of a piece; it is the little man that is a bundle of contradictory elements. He is inexhaustible. You never come to the end of the surprises he has in store for you. For my part I would much sooner spend a month on a desert island with a veterinary surgeon than with a prime minister.

高中英語美文短篇閱讀欣賞譯文：

論見名人

許多人熱衷于見名人，我始終不得其解。在朋友面前吹噓自己認(rèn)識某某名人，同此而來的聲望只能證明自己的微不足道。名人個個練就了一套處世高招，無論遇上誰，都能應(yīng)付自如。他們給世人展現(xiàn)的是一副面具，常常是美好難忘的面具，但他們會小心翼翼地掩蓋自己的真相。他們扮演的是大家期待的角色，演得多了，最后都能演得惟妙惟肖。如果你還以為他們在公眾面前的表演就是他們的真實自我，那就你傻了。

我自己就喜歡一些人，非常喜歡他們。但我對人感興趣一般不是因為他們自身的緣故，而是出于我工作需求。正如康德勸告的那樣，我從來沒有把認(rèn)識某人作為目的，而是將其當(dāng)作對一個作家有用的創(chuàng)作素材。比之名流顯士，我更加關(guān)注無名小卒。他們常常顯得較為自然真實，他們無須再創(chuàng)造另一個人物形象，用他來保護(hù)自己不受世人干擾，或者用他來感動世人。他們的社交圈子有限，自己的種種癖性也就越有可能得到滋長。因為他們從來沒有引起公眾的關(guān)注，也就從來沒有想到過要隱瞞什么。他們會表露他們古怪的一面，因為他們從來就沒有覺得有何古怪?？傊?，作家要寫的是普通人。在我們看來，國王，獨裁者和商界大亨等都是不符合條件的。去撰寫這些人物經(jīng)常是作家們難以抗拒的冒險之舉，可為此付出的努力不免以失敗告終，這說明這些人物都過于特殊，無法成為一件藝術(shù)作品的創(chuàng)作根基，作家也不可能把他們寫得真真切切。老百姓才是作家的創(chuàng)作沃土，他們或變幻無常，或難覓其二，各式人物應(yīng)有盡有，這些都給作家提供了無限的創(chuàng)作素材。大人物經(jīng)常是千人一面，小人物身上才有一組組矛盾元素，是取之不盡的創(chuàng)作源泉，讓你驚喜不斷。就我而言，如果在孤島上度過一個月，我寧愿和一名獸醫(yī)相守，也不愿同一位首相做伴。