美文教学对培养学生的语言素养和人文素养具有极大益处,更能丰富学生的精神世界,磨炼学生的意志。下面是小编带来的英语经典美文心灵鸡汤，欢迎阅读!

英语经典美文心灵鸡汤精选

What I Have Lived for

我为什么活着

Bertrand Russell

[英]伯特兰·罗素

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong,have governed my life: 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 verge of despair.

对爱的渴望、对知识的追求和对人类苦难难以忍受的怜悯之心—这三种朴素而不可抗拒的情感主宰着我的生活。这些情感似阵阵飓风，任意地把我吹得飘来荡去，穿过痛苦的海洋，抵达绝望的彼岸。

I have sought love，first，because it brings ecstasy-ecstasy so great that I would have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of 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 cold unfathomable lifeless 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 1 sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what-at last-I have found.

我曾寻求过爱，首先是因为爱可以使人欣喜若狂—它是如此令人狂喜，为了片刻的欢娱，我宁愿牺牲我的余生;我曾寻求过爱，其次是因为它能解除人的孤独感—置身于这可怕的孤独中，那令人震颇的感觉，会掠过这个世界的边缘，把人带入无声无息的寒气袭人的无底深渊;我曾寻求过爱，还因为在爱的结合，在这一神秘的缩影中，我看到了圣贤和诗人们所曾幻想的天堂景色。这也正是我追求的。尽管这对世间凡人而言似乎是一种奢望，但这是我最终所找到的。

With equal passion 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 Pythagoreans power by which number holds away above the flux. A little of this, but, not much, I have achieved.

带着同样的激情，我曾追求过知识。我曾希望了解人类的心灵，我曾想知道星辰为何发光，我曾试图理解毕达哥拉斯的力量，通过他的力量，数驾驭了万物的变化。我获得了一点知识，但并不多。

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberated in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by 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.

爱和知识，它们可以把人引入天堂。但是怜悯之心又常常把我带回尘世。痛苦的呼唤在我心中回晌激荡。嗷嗷待哺的孩子，被鞭挞的受压迫者，孤独无助的老人—儿女们憎恨的负担，还有那充满着孤独、贫穷和痛苦的世界，都在嘲弄着人类生活本应有的美好。我渴望减少人间的邪恶，却无能为力，也因此受着煎熬。

This has been my life. I have found it worth living. And I would gladly live ii again if the chance were offered to me.

这就是我的生活，我觉得活得值。假若天赐良机，我愿高高兴兴地再如此活一次。

英语经典美文心灵鸡汤阅读

However Mean Your Life Is

无论你的生活如何卑微

Henry David Thoreau

[美]亨利·大卫·梭罗

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shirk it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise.

不管你的生活如何卑微，你都要正视它，生活下去;不要逃避生活，也不要恶语相加。你的生活不像你自己想象得那么槽糕。当你最富有的时候，生活看上去反倒是最贫穷的。故意挑毛病的人即使在天堂也能挑出瑕疵。

Love your life，poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling，glorious hours，even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode;the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there，and have as cheering thoughts，as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town;but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old;return to them. Things do not change;we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.God will see that you do not want society. If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me. The philosopher said，"From an army of three divisions one can take away its general, and put it in disorder; from the man the most abject and vulgar one cannot take away his thought."Do not seek so anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to be played on;it is all dissipation. Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights. The shadows of poverty and meanness gather around us, "and lo! creation widens to our view." We are often reminded that if there were bestowed on us the wealth of Croesus, our aims must still be the same, and our means essentially the same. Moreover, if you are restricted in your range by poverty, if you cannot buy books and newspapers,for instance, you are but confined to the most significant and vital experiences;you are compelled to deal with the material which yields the most sugar and the most starch. It is life near the bone where it is sweetest. You are defended from being a trifler. No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.

虽然生活清贫，但你要对生活付出热情。即便身处贫民院，你也可能会分享到一段快乐、激动、灿烂的时光。西下的落日洒在贫民院窗户上的光芒，与照在富贵人家豪宅上的一样光彩夺目;到了早春的时候，门前的积雪同样会融化。我唯一能看到的是:一个心态平静的人在那里可以心满意足地生活，怀着乐观向上的思想，仿佛居住在皇宫里一般。在我看来，城镇贫民的生活反倒常常是最独立的。也许他们很伟大，可以坦然地对待世间的事情。大部分人对于城镇的恩惠不屑一顾，可在现实生活中，他们维持生活的手段反而经常是不诚实的，这让他们更为声名狼藉。像圣贤一样，如同培育花园中的花草一样来培育贫困吧。没必要不辞辛苦地去获取新东西，不管是衣服还是朋友，让旧的翻新，回到它们的怀抱。世间万物不会变化，变的是我们。卖掉衣服时，你要保留自己的思想。上帝会见证，你并不想融入社会。如果我整天被局限在阁楼的角落，如同一只蜘蛛，可只要我还有自己的思想，那么世界还是原来那样大。一位哲人曾说过:“三军可夺帅也，匹夫不可夺志也。”不要迫切谋求自己的发展，不要让各种影响干扰自己，这一切都是浪费。因为谦卑如同黑暗，揭露出天国之光。贫穷与卑贱的阴云纠缠着我们，“看啊!天地万物在我们的眼界中扩大了。”我们常常得到警示，如果上天赋予我们克洛索斯相同的财富，我们的目标一定不会改变，我们的方式也将不会改变。此外，如果贫困束缚了你，例如，你没钱买书和报纸，你的经验只是局限于最有意义、最为重要的那一部分;你被迫与那些糖和淀粉含量最高的物质应付。越靠近骨头的地方就越甜美，你不可能再成为一个不务正业的人。宽宏大量，不会让曾在较低层次的人在较高层次失去什么。过多的财富只能买到过多的物品，而人所必需的灵魂是用金钱买不到的。

I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries. My neighbors tell me of their adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies,what notabilities they met at the dinner-table:but I am no more interested in such tilings than in the contents of the Daily Times. The interest and the conversation are about costume and manners chiefly; but a goose is a goose still, dress it as you will. They tell me of California and Texas, of England and the Indies,of the Hon. Mr.—of Georgia or of Massachusetts, all transient and fleeting phenomena, till I am ready to leap from their court-yard like the Mameluke bey.

我住在一堵铅墙的角落里，而且铅墙里还灌注了一点银铜的合金。每当我正午休息时，经常能听到阵阵杂乱无章的喧闹声。这噪音源自我的同代人，我的邻居向我所讲述的他的奇遇，都是和那些知名的绅士淑女有关的，如他们在宴会桌上遇到了哪些重要人物。但是我对这些事情根本没有兴趣，这如同(每日时报)的内容一样乏味，主要围绕服饰打扮和礼节举止是兴趣和谈话的主题。但是任你怎么去刻意装扮，呆头鹅总归是呆头鹅。他们向我不厌其烦地讲起加利福尼亚和得克萨斯，英格兰和东西印度群岛，来自佐治亚或马萨诸塞的尊敬的某某先生—全是瞬间即逝、不能长存的事情，我终于无法忍受，差点要像马穆鲁克大人一样从他们的庭院中偷偷溜走。

I delight to come to my bearings-not walk in procession with pomp and parade，in a conspicuous place，but to walk even with the Builder of the universe, if I may-not to live in this restless，nervous，bustling，trivial Nineteenth Century,but stand or sit thoughtfully while it goes by. What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his orator. I love to weigh, to settle,to gravitate toward that which most strongly and rightfully attracts me-not hang by the beam of the scale and try to weigh less-not suppose a case, but take the case that is;to travel the only.path I can，and that on which no power can resist me. It affords me no satisfaction to commence to spring an arch before I have got a solid foundation. There is a solid bottom everywhere. We read that the traveler asked the boy if the swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that it had. But presently the traveler's horse sank in up to the girths, and he observed to the boy, "I thought you said that this bog had a hard bottom" . "So it has,”answered the latter, "but you have not got half way to it yet." So it is with the bogs and quicksands of society; but he is an old boy that knows it. Only what is thought, said, or done at a certain rare coincidence is good. I would not be one of those who will foolishly drive a nail into mere lath and plastering;such a deed would keep me awake nights. Give me a hammer, and let me feel for the furring. Do not depend on the putty. Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfactory-a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse. So will help you God,and so only. Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work.

我喜欢处在我自己的世界—不愿招人耳目地走在盛大的游行庆祝队伍中，而想与宇宙的创造者平等地一起同行，假如可以的话，我不想生活在这个轻浮急躁、神经兮兮、熙熙攘攘、举止随便的19世纪，而想伴着19世纪一天天地流逝，或立或坐，思考着。人们在庆祝什么呢?他们都成了某个筹备委员会成员，时刻期待着某个大人物的演说。上帝不过是今天的轮值主席，而韦伯斯特才是他的演说家。对于那些强烈地、正确地让我感兴趣的事物，我喜爱估量它们的重量，解决它们，让它们吸引—决不想放在秤杆上，尝试减轻重量—不妄加推测任何事情，而是完全根据其实际情况来解决;在那条我能走的必经之路上继续前行。在这条路上，我可以战胜任何力量。在拥有坚实稳固的基础之前，就开始着手建造起一座拱门，我不会因为这样的行为，感到丝毫满足。所有地方的底部都是结实的。我们从书中得知这样一个故事:一个旅行者问一个男孩，前方的这块沼泽底部是不是坚固。男孩回答道:“是坚固的。”可是旅行者没走多远，他的马便深陷沼泽，不一会儿就到了马的腰部，他对男孩说，“我本以为你说的是这块沼泽底部是坚固的……”“是坚固的啊，”男孩说道，“可是你还没有触到它的底部一半深呢。”社会的泥沼和流沙也是这个道理，但是只有少年老成的人才知晓这一点。只有在一些少有的巧合中，人们的所想、所言、所为才是正确的。有一些人愚蠢地只知道是将钉子钉入板条和灰泥中，我可不想与这样的人为伍;要是那么做，我会彻夜难眠。给我一把锤子，让我感受一下钉板条的感觉。不要依靠油灰状的黏性材料。钉入一只钉子，就钉得结结实实，就算是在半夜醒来，一想到自己的工作，你也会心满意足—即便请来缪斯女神，你对这件工作也没有愧疚。这么做，而且只有这么做，上帝才会伸出援助之手。钉入的每颗钉子，都应像宇宙机器中的铆钉一样固定，你的工作才能继续下去。

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices. I thought that there was no need of ice to freeze them. They talked to me of the age of the wine and the fame of the vintage; but I thought of an older, a newer,and purer wine，of a more glorious vintage，which they had not got, and could not buy. The style, the house and grounds and "entertainment" pass for nothing with me. I called on the king, but he made me wait in his hall, and conducted like a man incapacitated for hospitality. There was a man in my neighborhood who lived in a hollow tree. His manners were truly regal. I should have done better had I called on him.

我不在乎爱、金钱、名誉，我只要真理。我坐在摆满佳肴美酒的桌旁，身边有诌媚的侍从，但是却少了真诚和誓言。我饿着肚子转身离开这冷漠的餐桌。这种盛情如冰一样冰冷，我想无需再用冰块来冻结它们。他们告诉我葡萄美酒的年份和产地的历史，这让我想起了一种更年深月久且更新更纯、更光荣的佳酿，可他们手上没有，也无法买到。我把他们的风格、衰宅、庭园和“娱乐”当做草芥。我去拜见国王，他却让我在客厅等候，他的行为如同丧失了好客能力似的。我的一个邻居住在树洞里，他的举止才是真正的王者。我要是去拜访他，待遇肯定会好得多。

英语经典美文心灵鸡汤学习

How to Grow Old

Bertrand Russell

如何慢慢变老

In spite of the title, this article will really be on how not to grow old, which，at my time of life, is a much more important subject. My first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully. Although both my parents died young，I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors. My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth at the age of sixty-seven，but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty. Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off. A great grandmother of mine, who was a friend of Gibbon，lived to the age of ninety-two, and to her last day remained a terror to all her descendants.My maternal grandmother，after having nine children who survived, one who died in infancy, and many miscarriages, as soon as she became a widow, devoted herself to woman's higher education. She was one of the founders of Girton College,and worked hard at opening the medical profession to women. She used to relate how she met in Italy an elderly gentleman who was looking very sad. She inquired the cause of his melancholy and he said that he had just parted from his two grandchildren. “Good gracious，”she exclaimed，“I have seventy-two grandchildren, and if I were sad each time I parted from one of them, I should have a dismal existence!”Madre snaturale,”he replied. But speaking as one of the seventy-two, I prefer her recipe. After the age of eighty she found she had some difficulty in getting to sleep，so she habitually spent the hours from midnight to 3 a.m. in reading popular science. I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was growing old. This, I think, is proper recipe for remaining young. If you have wide and keen interests and activities in which you can still be effective, you will have no reason to think about the merely statistical fact of the number of years you have already lived, still less of the probable brevity of you future.

[英]伯特兰·罗素

As regards health I have nothing useful to say since I have little experience of illness. I eat and drink whatever I like，and sleep when I cannot keep awake. I never do anything whatever on the ground that it is good for health, though in actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome.

与题目如何变老不同，本文真正的主旨是如何避免变老。这样的话题对我这样年纪的人来说，显得更为重要。要避免变老，我的第一个建议是:一定要小心冀冀地选择自己的祖先。虽然我的双亲在年轻的时候就去世了，可假如算上其他先人，我选的祖先还是相当不错的。确实，我的外祖父在67岁的时候便离开了人世，但是我的外祖母和祖父母三人都活了80多岁。时间更为久远一些的祖先当中，我只找到有一位没有能够安享

晚年的，他是死于一种目前已极为少见的疾病，即被人砍了头。我有一位曾祖母，她还是吉本的好友，整整活了92岁，并且直到离开世界前的最后一天，她在后代的心目中都很有威严。我的外祖母，养活了9个孩子，还有一个幼年时去世的孩子，并且有过多次小产。丈夫去世之后，她便马上致力于女子高等教育事业。她是格顿学院的奠基人之一，并为打开女性通向医学殿堂的大门作出了不懈的努力。她常常讲起在意大利的经历。她曾遇见一位年长的绅士，看上去闷闷不乐。于是她就问这位绅士为什么悲伤，他回答说他不久前刚和两个孙子辈的孩子永别了。“天啊!”她惊叫道，“我有72个孙子孙女，要是每当他们中的某个死去，我都十分悲伤的话，那我的生活得多么悲惨啊!”这位绅士满脸惊讶地用意大利语说道:“多么不寻常的母亲啊。”但是，作为那72个子孙中的一员，我赞同她的理念。刚过80岁，她发现自己很难入睡，于是她慢慢地养成了习惯，从子夜时分到凌晨三点开始阅读科普文章。我不相信她会有时间注意到自己已经正慢慢变老。我认为，这样的行为方式正是永驻青春的奥妙所在。如果你有广泛而浓厚的兴趣，而且能积极踊跃地参加一些活动。自己已经活了多少年，这些具体的数字根本没有必要多加考虑，更无需为剩下的时日多少而担心。

Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do so live in memories, in regress for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One's thoughts must be directed to the future and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy: one's own past is gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one's emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one's mind keener. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.

关于身体健康，我没有什么值得借鉴的事情，因为我很少生病。我想吃就吃，想喝就喝，困了就睡。我做事情的原则是:不会因为对健康有益才去做。在实际生活中，我所喜欢做的率情大多是有益的。

The other thug to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigor from its vitality. When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives，and you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young，you are likely to become a burden to them，unless they are unusually callous.I do not mean that one should be without interest in them，but one’s interest should be contemplative and，if possible，philanthropic，but not unduly emotional. Animals become indifferent to their young as soon as their young can look after themselves，but human beings，owing to the length of infancy, find this difficult.

从心理学上看，有两种危险是值得步入老年的人预防的。其一是思念过去而不能自拔，生活在回忆里，深切地留恋美好的往事，为朋友的去世悲愉不已，这样做什么好处也没有。一个人的心思一定要放在未来，放在力所能及的事情上。这往往很难做到，随着年岁的增长，人的经历会在心中占据越来越重的地位，人们很容易想到，自己现在的情感不比先前热烈，先前的思维要比现在敏捷得多。如果这是事实的话，你就必须放弃这一念头，可如果真的忘掉了，这又不是事实了。

I think that a successful old age is easiest for those who have strong impersonal interests involving appropriate activities. It is in this sphere that long experience is really fruitful，and it is in this sphere that the wisdom born of experience can be exercised without being oppressive. It is no use telling grown-up children not to make mistakes，both because they will not believe you，and because mistakes are an essential part of education.But if you are one of those who are incapable of impersonal interests，you may find that your life will be empty unless you concern yourself with you children and grandchildren. In that case you must realize that while you can still render them material services，such as making them an allowance or knitting them jumpers，you must not expect that they will enjoy your company.

另一点就是要避免希望可以从青年人的身上得到他们生命的活力。当孩子们一个个变成大人之后，他们想拥有自己的生活。如果你还是像他们小时候那样，一直照顾他们，你很可能会成为他们的负担，除非他们一直是麻木不仁。我的意思并不是说人们应该对自己的成年子女漠不关心，而是在心里关心就足够了。如果条件允许的话，在物质方面给他们一些资助，而不应太注重感情。一旦动物幼崽能够独立生活了，动物就会立刻把它们扔到一边，而人类却因为抚育婴儿时间较长，最后发现很难做到这样。

Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows，and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abjectt and ignoble. The best way to overcome it-so at least it seems to me-is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal，until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede，and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river-small at first,narrowly contained}within its banks，and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider,the banks recede，the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea，and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death，since the things he cares for will continue, And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work,knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

我觉得，在一些适当的活动中，具有强烈的、非个人的兴趣，这样的成功的老年生活是最安逸的。恰恰在这一领域，丰富的经验才是真正有效果的;也刚好在这一领域，由经验而来的智慧才可以灵活运用而又不让旁人感到压迫。不停地嘱咐已经成年的子女别犯错误，那根本没有用，一来因为他们不再信任你的话，二来因为犯错误是教育的必经之路。可是，如果你无法对在意的事情不掺杂个人情感，你可能就会发现，假如自己对儿孙们不操心的话，生活就会空虚无趣。在这种情况下，你一定要认识到，即便你能在物质上给予他们帮助，比如不时给他们钱用来补贴家用或为他们编织毛衣，但是你别期盼他们会喜欢和你在一起。

有些老人因为害怕死亡，而惶惶不可终日。年轻人有这种情绪还讲得过去，他们有理由担心自己将来会战死杀场。可一旦意识到自己被骗，已经失去了生活中最为美好的东西，他们的愤愤不平倒是情有可原，也无可指责。可是，一个老人已经品尝过了人生的酸甜苦辣，已经达到了自己事业的高峰，如果仍然害怕死亡那就是可鄙可耻的事情了。战胜这种惧怕心理的最好的办法—起码在我看来是—是逐渐拓展自己的兴趣，让它更为宽泛一些，更为脱离个人感情色彩，直到自我的束缚慢慢消去，直到你的私人生活与尘世的生活越发和谐。个人的生存应该如同一条河流—源头是一股溪流，两岸之间狭隘无比，波涛奔涌地冲击岩石，越过瀑布，河岸朝两边慢慢隐退，河面变得越来越宽，河水的流动更为平缓，最终静静地融入大海。河水与海水毫无痛楚地合二为一成为一体，忘却彼此。用这种观点来对待生活的老人就不会害怕死亡，因为他心中所牵挂的事情仍将发展。进一步来说，假如伴随着精力的每况愈下，精神日趋惶惶不安，安乐归西的想法也不失为一种好的选择。我希望工作精力旺盛的时候，便去往极乐世界，因为我清楚，我已经不能再工作，别人会将我未完成的事业进行下去。一想到自己所能做的一切，我便心满意足了。