英语背诵美文30篇+译文

英语背诵美文30篇

·第一篇：Youth 青春

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple 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 than 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 being’s heart the lure of wonders, the unfail ing appetite for what’s 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 aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you’ve grown old, even at 20; but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there’s hope you may die young at 80.

青春不是人生的一个阶段，而是一种心境；青春不是指粉红的面颊、鲜艳的嘴唇、富有弹性的膝盖，而是指坚定的意志、丰富的想象、充沛的情感；青春，它是清新的生命之泉。

青春是一种气质，勇敢胜过怯弱，渴求冒险而不贪图安逸。这样的气息60老者常常有，20青年恰恰无。年岁增添，未必使人垂老；理想不再，终于步入暮年。

岁月悠悠，衰微只及肌肤；热忱抛却，颓废必致灵魂。忧烦、惶恐、自卑，使人心灵扭曲，心灰意冷。

无论60还是16岁，人人心中都怀着对新奇事物的向往，象孩童般对未来充满憧憬，此情永不消退，在生活的游戏中汲取快乐。在你我的内心深处都有一座无线电台，只要它接收到人间和上帝发出的美好、希望、欢乐、勇气和力量的信号，你就会青春永驻。

一旦你收拢天线，心灵即被愤世嫉俗和自暴自弃的冰霜覆盖，即使年方二十，已经步入垂暮之年；然而只要你竖起天线，接收积极乐观的信号，你就有望在八十高龄过世时依然年轻。

·第二篇：Three Days to See(Excerpts)假如给我三天光明（节选）

All 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 hours. 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 hours 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 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 saved 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 everything 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 health, death is all but unimaginable. We seldom think of it. The days stretch out in an endless vista. So we go about our petty tasks, hardly aware of our listless attitude