英语经典美文，人就像茶叶袋，只有放到热水中，你才能知道他们有多强大，以下的英语经典美文，希望可以帮到大家！

　　英语经典美文【1】

　　Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there, they serve some sort of purpose, to teach you a lesson or help figure out who you are or who you want to become. You never know who these people may be - your roommate, neighbor, professor, long lost friend, lover or even a complete stranger who, when you lock eyes with them, you know that very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way.

　　有时，一些人一闯入你的生活你便知道他们本就想这么做，其中有着一定的目的——或给你一个教训，或帮助你明白你是谁或你要成为谁。你永远也不知道这些人会是谁，是你的舍友、邻居、教授、久违的朋友、爱人，甚或是一个完全的陌生人。当你与他们四目相对，你便知道他们会以某种深远的方式影响你的生活。

　　And sometimes things happen to you and at the time they may seem horrible, painful and unfair, but in reflection you realize that without overcoming those obstacles, you would have never realized your potential, strength, will power or heart. Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good or bad luck. Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity - all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without these small tests, if they be events, illnesses or relationships, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere. Safe and comfortable but dull and utterly pointless.

　　有时，一些事情发生了，它们看上去是那么可怕、痛苦和不公;但细想一下你就会明白，如果没有去努力克服这些难题，你将永远也不会知道自己的潜能、力量、意志力和内心。任何事情的发生都是有原因的，没有一件事是偶然发生的或是因了某种好运或厄运发生的。疾病、伤害、爱、真正的伟大的消逝和完全的愚蠢――所有这一切的发生都是对你的精神极限的考验。不管这考验是一些事件、疾病或是某种关系，没有了它们，生活都将只剩下阳光大道，安稳、舒适，但却单调、没有意义，不会通往任何地方。

　　The people you meet who affect your life and the successes and downfalls you experience - they are the ones who create who you are. Even the bad experiences can be learned from. Those lessons are the hardest and probably the most important ones.

　　你遇到的那些影响你的生活的人和你所经历的成功或失败，都会让你看清自己。即使是不好的经历，也能让你从中得到教训。这些教训是最严酷的，但也可能是最重要的。

　　If someone hurts you, betrays you or breaks your heart, forgive them for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your heart to. If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and opening your heart and eyes to things you would have never seen or felt without them.

　　如果有人伤害了你、背叛了你、或让你心碎，原谅他们吧，因为他们帮助你懂得了什么是信任，也让你明白了对那些你敞开心扉交往的人保持谨慎的重要性。如果有人爱你，那么也无条件地爱他们吧，不光因为他们爱你，也因为他们教会了你如何去爱，如何打开心扉、张开眼睛去感受那些没有他们你便不能看到或感受到的世间的种种。

　　Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again.

　　让每一天都过得有意义吧。享受生命中的每一刻，尽你所能从中汲取，因为以后你可能没有机会再有同样经历。

　　Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually listen. Let yourself fall in love, break free and set your sights high. Hold your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you either. You can make of your life anything you wish. Create your own life and then go out and live it.

　　与那些你从没打过招呼的人互相交谈聆听吧，让自己沐浴爱河吧，自由地冲破藩篱，让你的眼界更加高远吧。抬起你的头，因为你有权利这样做。相信自己，告诉自己你很了不起，因为如果连你自己都不相信自己，别人又怎能相信你?你能够按自己的意愿生活。去创造出自己的生活，然后走出来享受生活吧。

　　"People are like tea bags - you have to put them in hot water before you know how strong they are."

　　人就像茶叶袋，只有放到热水中，你才能知道他们有多强大。

　　英语经典美文：妈妈的双手【2】

　　俗语云：“子不嫌母丑”，你小时候有没有过这样的经历，假如是妈妈对你说你哪一点做得不好，你可能会记仇很长很长时间，甚至都不会忘记，而你嫌弃的说自己母亲的缺点后，母亲却很快的就忘记了，因为假如你对母亲的爱是从地球到月亮那么多，母亲的爱却是从地球到月亮再从月亮回到地球还要多，她会原谅你的一切。

　　Night after night, she came to tuck me in, even long after my childhood years.　Following her longstanding custom, she'd lean down and push my long hair out of the way, then kiss my forehead.

　　夜复一夜，她总是来帮我来盖被子，即使我早已长大。这是妈妈的长期习惯，她总是弯下身来，拨开我的长发，在我的额上一吻。

　　I don't remember when it first started annoying me —— her hands pushing my hair that way. But it did annoy me, for they felt work-worn and rough against my young skin. Finally, one night, I lashed out at her:　"Don't do that anymore —— your hands are too rough!" She didn't say anything in reply.　But never again did my mother close out my day with that familiar expression of her love.　Lying awake long afterward, my words haunted me.　But pride stifled my conscience, and I didn't tell her I was sorry.

　　我不记得从何时起，她拨开我的头发令我非常不耐烦。但的确，我讨厌她长期操劳、粗糙的手摩擦我细嫩的皮肤。最后，一天晚上，我冲她叫： “别再这样了——你的手太粗糙了!”她什么也没说。但妈妈再也没有象这样对我表达她的爱。直到很久以后，我还是常想起我的那些话。但自尊占了上风，我没有告诉她我很后悔。

　　Time after time, with the passing years, my thoughts returned to that night.　By then I missed my mother's hands, missed her goodnight kiss upon my forehead.　Sometimes the incident seemed very close, sometimes far away.　But always it lurked, hauntingly, in the back of my mind.

　　时光流逝，我又想到那个晚上。那时我想念我妈妈的手，想念她晚上在我额上的一吻。有时这幕情景似乎很近，有时又似乎很遥远。但它总是潜伏着，时常浮现，出现在我意识中。

　　Well, the years have passed, and I'm not a little girl anymore.　Mom is in her mid-seventies, and those hands I once thought to be so rough are still doing things for me and my family.　She's been our doctor, reaching into a medicine cabinet for the remedy to calm a young girl's stomach or soothe a boy's scraped knee. She cooks the best fried chicken in the world…… gets stains out of blue jeans like I never could……and still insists on dishing out ice cream at any hour of the day or night.

　　一年年过去，我也不再是一个小女孩，妈妈也有70多岁了。那双我认为很粗糙的手依然为我和我家庭做着事。她是我家的医生，为我女儿在药橱里找胃药或在我儿子擦伤的膝盖上敷药。她能烧出世界上最美味的鸡…… 将牛仔裤弄干净而我却永远不能……而且可以在任何时候盛出冰激凌。

　　Through the years, my mother's hands have put in countless hours of toil, and most of hers were before automatic washers!

　　这么多年来，妈妈的手做了多少家务!而且在自动洗衣机出现以前她已经操劳了绝大多数时间。

　　Now, my own children are grown and gone. Mom no longer has Dad, and on special occasions, I find myself drawn next door to spend the night with her. So it was that late on Thanksgiving Eve, as I drifted into sleep in the bedroom of my youth, a familiar hand hesitantly stole across my face to brush the hair from my forehead.　Then a kiss, ever so gently, touched my brow.

　　现在，我的孩子都已经长大，离开了家。爸爸去世了，有些时候，我睡在妈妈的隔壁房间。一次感恩节前夕的深夜，我睡在年轻时的卧室里，一只熟悉的手有些犹豫地、悄悄地略过我的脸，从我额头上拨开头发，然后一个吻，轻轻地印在我的眉毛上。

　　In my memory, for the thousandth time, I recalled the night my surly young voice complained:　"Don't do that anymore —— your hands are too rough!" Catching Mom's hand in hand, I blurted out how sorry I was for that night.　I thought she'd remember, as I did.　But Mom didn't know what I was talking about.　She had forgotten —— and forgiven —— long ago.

　　在我的记忆中，无数次，想起那晚我粗暴、年青的声音：“别再这样了——你的手太粗糙了!”抓住妈妈的手，我冲口而出因为那晚，我是多么后悔。我以为她想起来了，象我一样。但妈妈不知道我在说些什么。她已经在很久以前就忘了这事，并早就原谅了我。

　　That night, I fell asleep with a new appreciation for my gentle mother and her caring hands.　And the guilt I had carried around for so long was nowhere to be found.

　　那晚，我带着对温柔母亲和体贴双手的感激入睡。这许多年来我的负罪感已经消失无踪。

　　英语励志美文【3】

　　While taking my boat down the inland waterway to Florida a few weeks ago, I decided to tie up at Georgetown, South Carolina, for the night and visit with an old friend. As we approached the Esso dock, I saw him through my binoculars standing there awaiting us. Tall and straight as an arrow he stood, facing a cold, penetrating wind—truly a picture of a sturdy man, even though his next birthday will make him eighty-two. Yes, the man was our elder statesman, Bernard Baruch.

　　He loaded us into his station wagon and we were off to his famous Hobcaw Barony for dinner. We sat and talked in the great living room where many notables and statesmen, including Roosevelt and Churchill, have sat and taken their cues. In his eighty-second year, still a human dynamo, Mr. Baruch talks not of the past but of present problems and the future, deploring our ignorance of history, economics, and psychology. His only reference to the past was to tell me, with a wonderful sparkle in his eye, that he was only able to get eight quail out of the ten shots the day before. What is the secret of this great man’s value to the world at eighty-one? The answer is his insatiable desire to keep being productive.

　　Two of the hardest things to accomplish in this world are to acquire wealth by honest effort and, having gained it, to learn how to use it properly. Recently I walked into the locker room of a rather well-known golf club after finishing a round. It was in the late afternoon and most of the members had left for their homes. But a half-dozen or so men past middle age were still seated at tables talking aimlessly and drinking more than was good for them. These same men can be found there day after day and, strangely enough, each one of these men had been a man of affairs and wealth, successful in business and respected in the community. If material

　　prosperity were the chief requisite for happiness, then each one should have been happy. Yet, it seemed to me, something very important was missing, else there would not have been the constant effort to escape the realities of life through Scotch and soda. They knew, each one of them, that their productivity had ceased. When a fruit tree ceases to bear its fruit, it is dying. And it is even so with man.

　　What is the answer to a long and happy existence in this world of ours? I think I found it long ago in a passage from the book, Genesis, which caught my eyes while I was thumbing through my Bible. The words were few, but they became indelibly impressed on my mind: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread.”

　　To me, that has been a challenge from my earliest recollections. In fact, the battle of life, of existence, is a challenge to everyone. The immortal words of St. Paul, too, have been and always will be a great inspiration to me. At the end of the road I want to be able to feel that I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.

　　本书共选取自述性散文七十二篇。原文作者用简洁、朴实的文字讲述自己如何在逆境中领悟到生活的真谛而最后获得成功。原文短小精悍、语言平实，启迪读者心智。译文忠实于原文的内容和风格，可读性强。本书不仅是一本英汉对照的优秀励志读物，而且还是翻译佳作，可供在校大学生、英语自学者和翻译爱好者阅读学习。