晨读英语美文100篇

1、晨读英语美文100 篇Passage1. Knowledge and VirtueKnowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy, however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no

2、 vivifying principles. Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman.It is well to be a gentleman, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of lifethese are the

3、connatural qualities of a large knowledge;they are the objects of a University.I am advocating, I shall illustrate and insist upon them;but still, I repeat, they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness,and they may attach to the man of the world, to the profligate,to the heartles

4、s, pleasant, alas, and attractive as he shows when decked out in them.Taken by themselves, they do but seem to be what they are not;they look like virtue at a distance, but they are detected by close observers, and in the long run;and hence it is that they are popularly accused of pretense and hypoc

5、risy,not, I repeat, from their own fault,but because their professors and their admirers persist in taking them for what they are not,and are officious in arrogating for them a praise to which they have no claim.Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk,then may y

6、ou hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledgeand human reason to contend against those giants,Passage 2. “ Packing ” a PersonA person, like a commodity, needs packaging.But going too far is absolutely undesirable.A little exaggeration, however, does no harmwhen it shows the pers

7、on's unique qualities to their advantage.To display personal charm in a casual and natural way,it is important for one to have a clear knowledge of oneself.A master packager knows how to integrate art and nature without any traces of embellishment,so that the person so packaged is no commodity b

8、ut a human being, lively and lovely.A young person, especially a female, radiant with beauty and full of life,has all the favor granted by God.Any attempt to make up would be self-defeating.Youth, however, comes and goes in a moment of doze.Packaging for the middle-aged is primarily to conceal the f

9、urrows ploughed by time.If you still enjoy life's exuberance enough to retain self-confidenceand pursue pioneering work, you are unique in your natural qualities,and your charm and grace will remain.Elderly peopleare beautiful if their river of life has been,through plains, mountains and jungles

10、, running its course as it should.You have really lived your life which now arrives at a complacent stage of serenityindifferent to fame or wealth.There is no need to resort to hair-dyeing ； the snow-capped mountain is itself a beautiful scene of fairyland.Let your looks change from young to old syn

11、chronizing with the natural ageing processso as tokeep in harmony with nature, for harmony itself is beauty,while the other way round will only end in unpleasantness.To be in the elder's company is like reading a thick book of deluxe editionthat fascinates one so much as tobe reluctant to part w

12、ith.As long as one finds where one stands, one knows how to package oneself,just as a commodity establishes its brand by the right packaging.Passage 3. Three Passions I Have Lived forThree passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life:the longing for love,the searchforknowledge,a

13、nd unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.Thesepassions, like great winds, have blown mehither and thither,in a wayward course over a deep ocean ofanguish,reaching to the very verge of despair.I have soughtlove, first, because it brings ecstasy ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrific

14、ed all the rest of my lifefor a few hours for this joy.I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousnesslooks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss.I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love

15、 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 I have sought knowledge.I have wished to understand the hearts of m

16、en.I have wished to know why the stars shine .A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens.But always pity broughtme back toearth.Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart.Children in famine, victims tortured by

17、 oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons,and the whole world of loneliness, 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 aga

18、inif the chance were offered me.Passage 4. A Little GirlSitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows ofthe church, was a little girl.With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing,while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloudthat hovered like a golden feather

19、above her head.The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair,gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black.So completely absorbed was she in watching the cloud to whichher strange song or incantation seemed addressed,that

20、 she did not observe me when I rose and went towards her.Over her head, high up in the blue,a lark that was soaring towards the same gauzy cloud was singing, as if in rivalry.AsI slowlyapproached the child,I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl,and especially

21、 by her complexion, that she uncommonly lovely.Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet,were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way,and these matched in hue her eyebrows,and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat were quivering in

22、the sunlight.All this I did not take in at once;for at first I could seenothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turnedup into my face.Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth,grew upon me as I stood silently gazing.Here seemed to me a more perfect beau

23、ty than had ever come to me in my loveliest dreams of beauty.Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me.Passage 5 Declaration of IndependenceWhen in the Course of human events,it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bandswhich have c

24、onnected them with another,and to assume among the powers of the earth,the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,a decent respect to the opinions of mankindrequires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold th

25、ese truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,deriving their just powers from the

26、consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolishit,and to institute new Government,layingits foundationonsuch principles and organizing its powers in such form,as to them shall seem most likely to eff

27、ect their Safety and Happiness.Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long establishedshould not be changed for light and transient causes;and accordingly all experience has shown,that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,than to right themselves by abolishing the

28、 forms to which they are accustomed.But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce themunder absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty,to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such

29、 has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies;and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systemsof Government.The history of the present King of Great Britainis a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,all having in direct object the establishment of an abso

30、lute Tyranny over these States.To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.Passage 6. A Tribute to the DogThe best friend a man has in the world may turn againsthim and become his enemy.His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful.Those who are nearest and

31、 dearest to us,those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name,may become traitors to their faith.The money that a man has he may lose.It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most.A man s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action.The people who are proneto f

32、all ontheirknees to dous honorwhensuccess is with usmay be the first to throw the stone of malicewhen failuresettles itscloudupon ourheads.Theoneabsolutely unselfish friendthatman can have in thisselfishworld,the onethat neverdeserts him,theone thatneverproves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.A

33、 man s dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness.He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely,if only he may be near his master s side.He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer;he will lick the wounds and sores that

34、come from encounter with the roughness of the world.He will guard thesleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince.When all other friends desert, he remains.When riches take wings andreputation falls to pieces,he is as constant in his love as thesun in its journeys through the heavens.If fortune

35、 drives the master forth,an outcast in the world, friendlessandhomeless,the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanyinghim,to guard him against danger, to fightagainst his enemies.And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master in its embrace,and his body is laid

36、 away in the cold ground,no matter if all other friends pursue their way,there by the grave will the noble dog be found,his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness,faithful and true even in death.Passage 7. Knowledge and ProgressWhy does the idea of progress loom so large

37、in the modern world?Surely because progress of a particular kind is actually taking place around usand is becoming more and more manifest.Although mankind has undergone no general improvement in intelligence or morality,it has made extraordinary progress in the accumulation of knowledge.Knowledge be

38、gan to increase as soon as the thoughts of one individualcould be communicated to another by means of speech.With the invention of writing ， a great advance was made,for knowledge could then be not onlycommunicated but also stored.Libraries made education possible, and educationin its turn added to

39、libraries:thegrowth of knowledge followed a kind of compound interest law,whichwas greatlyenhancedby the invention ofprinting.All this was comparatively slow until, with the coming of science,the tempo was suddenly raised.Then knowledge began to be accumulated according to a systematic plan.The tric

40、kle became a stream;the stream has now become a torrent.Moreover, as soon as new knowledge is acquired, it is now turned to practical account.What is called “ modern civilization ” is not the result of a balanced development of all man'snature,but of accumulated knowledgeapplied topractical life

41、.The problem now facing humanity is:What is going to be done with all this knowledge?Asis so oftenpointed out, knowledge is a two-edged weaponwhich can be used equally for good or evil.It is now being used indifferently for both.Could any spectacle, for instance, be more grimly weirdthanthat of gunn

42、ers using science to shatter men'sbodies while, close at hand,surgeons use it to restore them?Wehave to ask ourselves very seriously what willhappen if this twofold use of knowledge,with its ever-increasing power, continues.Passage 8. Address by EngelsOn the 14th of March, at a quarter to three

43、in the afternoon,thegreatest living thinker ceased to think.He hadbeen left alone for scarcely two minutes,and when we came back we found him in his armchair,peacefully gone to sleepbut forever.An immeasurable loss has been sustained both by the militantproletariat of Europe and America,and byhistor

44、ical science, in the death of this man.The gap that has been left by the departureof this mighty spiritwillsoonenough make itself felt.Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature,so Marx discovered the law of development of human history:the simple fact, hitherto concealed by

45、an overgrowth of ideology,that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing,before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.;that therefore the production of the immediate material means of subsistenceand consequently the degree of economic development attained by a giv

46、en peopleor during a given epoch form the foundation upon which the state institutions,the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion,of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore,be explained, instead ofvice versa, as had hithertobeen the case

47、.But that is notall.Marx also discovered the special law of motion governing the present-day capitalistmode of productionand thebourgeois society that this mode of production has created.The discovery of surplus value suddenly threw light on the problem,intryingto solve which all previousinvestigati

48、ons,of both bourgeois economists and socialist critics, had been gropingin the dark.Two such discoverieswould be enough for one lifetime.Happy the man to whom it is granted to make even one such discovery.But in every single field which Marx investigated and he investigated very many fields,none of

49、them superficially in every field, even in that of mathematics,he made independent discoveries.Passage 9. Relationship that LastsIf somebody tells you, “ I ll love you for ever, ” will you believe it?I don t think there s any reason not to.We are ready to believe such commitment at the moment,whatev

50、er change may happen afterwards.As for the belief in an everlasting love, that s another thing.Then you may be asked whether there is such a thing as an everlasting love.I d answer I believe in it, but an everlasting love is not immutable.You may unswervingly love or be loved by a person.But love wi

51、ll change its composition with the passage of time.It will not remain the same.In the course of your growth and as a result of your increased experience,love will become something different to you.In the beginning you believed a fervent love for a person could last definitely.By and by, however, “ f

52、ervent ” gave way to “ prosaic ” .Precisely because of this change it became possible for love to last.Then what was meant by an everlasting love would eventually endup in a sort of interdependence.We used to insist on the difference between love and liking.The former seemed muchmore beautiful than

53、the latter.One day, however, it turns outthere s really no need to make such difference.Liking is actually a sort of love.By the same token, the everlasting interdependence is actually an everlasting love.I wish I couldbelieve there was somebody who would love me for ever.That s, as we all know, too

54、 romantic to be true.Passage 10. RushSwallows may have gone, but there is a time of return;willow trees may have died back, but there is a time of regreening;peach blossoms may have fallen, but they will bloom again.Now, you the wise, tell me, why should our days leave us, never to return?If they had been stolen by someone, who could it be?Where could he hide them?If they had made the escape themselves, then where could they stay at the moment?I don t know how many days I have been given to spend,but I do feel m