飽含經典哲理的英語美文賞析

　　優美的文字於細微處傳達出美感，並浸潤着人們的心靈。通過英語美文,不僅能夠感受語言之美,領悟語言之用，還能產生學習語言的興趣。度過一段美好的時光，即感悟生活，觸動心靈。

　　下面是小編爲大家帶來英語經典哲理美文賞析，希望大家喜歡!

　　一、我們周圍隱祕的世界

ever since socrates was introduced to my adolescent mind he has been one chief master of my thinking. what he believed still seems to me to be indispensable for carrying on an intelligent and responsible life. he believed that he did not know. for myself, i have come to change his negative into a positive. i know that there is far more in this universe for me to know than i now know.

少年時代我接觸到了蘇格拉底的思想，從此，他便成了我的思想導師。在我看來，蘇格拉底的信仰在明智而負責的生活中始終不可或缺。蘇格拉底相信自己無知，而我將他的否定句變爲了肯定句。我知道，除了我現有的知識，宇宙中尚有無窮多的知識等待我們去學習。

i recently had a dramatic illustration of this. my wife and i, driving through arizona, stopped at a “collector’s shop” in tucson, where stones and minerals of many kinds were on display. in the course of the visit, we were taken into a small room where rocks were laid out on shelves. they were quite ordinary-looking rocks. had i seen them on some hillside, i would not have given them a second thought. then the man closed the door so that the room was in total darkness and turned on an ultraviolet lamp.

最近，我經歷了一個生動的例證。我和妻子開車穿過亞利桑那州時，停車參觀了圖森市一家陳列着各種各樣的石頭與礦石的收藏店。在參觀過程中，我們被帶到了一個架子上擺滿石頭的小房間裏。看起來，這些石頭沒什麼特別。如果在山邊看到，恐怕我都不想再看第二眼了。店員關上了門，房間裏頓時一片漆黑，然後他打開了一盞紫外線照射燈。

instantly the prosaic rocks leaped into a kind of glory. brilliant colors of an indescribable beauty were there before our eyes.

霎那間，這些普通的石頭立刻變得光彩奪目。頓時，一種難以形容的燦爛與美麗出現在我們眼前。

a very simple thing—and yet a very tremendous thing—had happened. a certain power had been snapped on; and a hidden world leaped into life.

一件非常平凡卻又無比奇妙的事情就這樣發生了。突然間，出現了某種力量，一個隱祕的世界驟然出現在生活中。

as i look at my universe and walk among my fellow humans, i have the deep belief that hidden realities are all around us. these hidden realities are there in the physical world; and they are there, also, in the human world. if i am foolish enough to think that i see all there is to be seen in front of my eyes, i simply miss the glory.

當我凝視着眼前的世界，或穿梭在茫茫人海之中，我深信我們周圍存在着一個隱祕的現實。它們存在於物質世界之中，也存在於人類世界中。如果我愚笨地認爲，眼前的一切就是我應看到的所有事物，那我就錯過了輝煌。

i believe, then, that my chief job in life—and my astonishing privilege—is to snap on an extra power so that i can see what my naked eyes—or my naked mind—cannot now see. i believe that i have to do this particularly with my human fellows. my ordinary eyes tend to stop short at those opaque envelopes we call human bodies. but we have learned that by turning on a certain power we can penetrate to the inside of these envelopes.

我相信，爲了能夠看到我肉眼所無法看到的一切，或是我知識貧乏的大腦所無法理解的東西，就必須抓住一種非凡的力量，這是我一生中的首要任務，也是我的神奇優勢。我堅信，我應當去做，尤其是與他人一起去做。我的凡眼只能看到人的軀體，但我們已經學會了依靠某種力量，透過不透明的軀體看到人的內在。

we call this extra power “imagination.” at its highest, we call it “empathy,” the power to see through and to feel through to the inner life of other human beings. it is a kind of ultraviolet lamp of our psychic life. when we turn on this lamp of imaginative sensitivity, we make the prosaic human beings around us come excitingly gale once set down as the first article of her creed: “i believe in expanding the areas of my awareness.” i’d do the same. if i expand the areas of my awareness, i move understandingly into realities beyond me. when i move into them understandingly, i know what i can do and what i should do. if i don’t move in understandingly, if i stay in ignorance on the outside, then, in all likelihood, i will do mistaken things.

我們稱這種非凡的力量爲“想象”。想象力的最高級別，即是我們所說的“移情作用”，這種力量能夠透過表面，看到或感受到他人的內心世界。它就像是我們精神生活中的紫外線照射燈。當我們將這盞想象的燈打開，就能使周圍平凡的人們充滿活力。“我相信，應當擴展我的認知領域。”這是佐納?蓋爾曾經寫下的第一條信仰。我也要這麼做。如果我的認知領域能夠得到擴展，那我就能夠理解那些我無法領悟的現實。如果我理解了這些現實，就可以明白自己能做什麼，應該做什麼。如果我無法理解，而是無知地在門外徘徊，那麼我很可能會做錯事。

the great principle of love depends on this. he who loves another tries truly to understand the other. we can reverse this: he who tries truly to understand another is not likely to hate that other.

愛的偉大原則也是來源於此。愛人者，會真正地理解他人。反過來也可以說，一個真正理解他人的人，自然不可能憎恨他人。

socrates gave no finished catalogue of the “truths” of the world. he gave, rather, the impulse to search. this is far better, i feel, than dogmatic certainty. when we are aware that there are glories of life still hidden from us, we walk humbly before the great unknown. but we do more than this: we try manfully to increase our powers of seeing and feeling so that we can turn what is still unknown into what is warmly and understandingly known…this, i believe, is our great human adventure.

蘇格拉底並沒有將世界“真理”的目錄完全列出，而是給予我們探索的動力。我認爲，這樣的好處遠遠大於教條式的理論。當我們認識到，周圍依然隱祕着生命的奇蹟時，在上帝面前我們就會謙卑而行。但我們要做的還有更多：我們要勇於努力提高我們觀察與感受的能力，以便於將未知的世界轉變爲我們能夠深切領悟的已知世界……我相信，這是我們人類的偉大探險。

　　二、午夜的一課

ever since one midnight, in nineteen hundred and nine, when i first heard my mother crying, i have been groping for beliefs to help me through the rough going and confusions of life. my dad’s voice was low and troubled as he tried to comfort mother. and in their anguish, they both forgot the nearness of my bedroom. and so, i overheard them. i was only seven then, and while their problem of that time has long since been solved and forgotten, the big discovery i made that night is still right with me: life is not all hearts and flowers; indeed it’s hard and cruel for most of us much of the time. we all have troubles, they just differ in nature, that’s all. and that leads me to my first belief.

自1909年的一個午夜第一次聽到母親哭泣以來，我一直尋找信仰幫我度過生活中的艱辛與困惑。父親安慰母親時，聲音低沉而憂鬱。極度的痛苦讓他們忘記我的臥室就在附近。我無意中聽到了他們的談話，那時我只有七歲。儘管他們當時的問題如今已經解決也被遺忘，但那一晚的重大發現仍然教導我：生活並不總是充滿鮮花和愛情。許多時候生活對於我們大多數人來說艱辛而殘酷，我們都有煩惱，只是煩惱的性質不同，僅此而已。這就是我的第一個信念。

i believe the human race is very, very tough—almost impossible to discourage. if it wasn’t, then why do we have such words as “laugh” and “sing” and “music” and “dance”—in the language of all mankind since the beginning of recorded time? this belief makes me downright proud to be a human being.

我相信人類十分堅強，幾乎不可能感到灰心沮喪。如若不然，爲何有史以來人類所有的語言中都有“歡笑”、“歌唱”、“音樂”和“舞蹈”這樣的詞呢?這一信念讓我無比自豪，因爲我是一個人。

next, i believe there is good and evil in all of us. thomas mann comes close to expressing what i’m trying to say to you with his carefully worded sentence about the “frightfully radical duality” between the brain and the beast in man—in all of us.

其次，我相信我們都有善和惡的一面。托馬斯.曼字斟句酌地闡述了人類(我們所有人)身上存在的理智與獸性這一“極基本的雙重性”時，幾乎道出了我的觀點。

this belief helps me because so long as i remember that there are certain forces of evil ever present in me—and never forget that there is also a divine spark of goodness in me, too—then i find the “score” of my bad mistakes at the end of each day is greatly reduced. “forewarned of evil, in other words, is half the battle against it.”

i believe in trying to be charitable, in trying to understand and forgive people, especially in trying to forgive very keen or brilliant people. a man may be a genius, you know, but he can still do things that practically break your heart.

這種信仰讓我受益，因爲只要記住自己身上一直存在着某些邪惡的力量——但也從未忘記自己身上也有上帝賜予的善良火花——我就會發現每天結束時，錯誤和悔恨的“得分”大大降低。可見“事先警惕惡行是與之鬥爭成功的一半”。我相信人要儘量樂善好施，儘量理解和寬恕別人，尤其要寬恕特別敏銳和聰慧的人，因爲即使天才也會做出讓你傷心的事情。

i believe most if not all of our very finest thoughts and many of our finest deeds must be kept to ourselves alone—at least until after we die. this used to confuse me. but now i realize that by their very nature, these finest things we do and then cannot talk about are a sort of, well, secret preview of a better life to come.

i believe there is no escape from the rule of life that we must do many, many little things to accomplish even just one big thing. this gives me patience when i need it most.

我相信，即使不是全部，大多數我們提出的最富創見的思想，大多數我們實施的最富成果的行爲，都不應讓人知道我們提出和實施的——至少要到我們去世之後才能讓人知道。這一點過去常讓我感到困惑，但如今我明白，我們完成這些最美妙的事情卻祕而不宣，實質上是暗地裏預見未來更美好的生活。我相信我們必須做許許多多小事才能成就大事，哪怕只一件大事。這一規律無法逃避。這種信仰使我在最需要辦大事的時候很耐心。

and then i believe in having the courage to be yourself. or perhaps i should say, to be honest with myself. sometimes this is practically impossible, but i’m sure i should always try.

還有，我相信要有勇氣還自己本色。或許我該說，要對自己實事求是。有時這幾乎不可能，但我確信我應該永遠努力爲之。

finally, and most important to me, i do believe in god. i’m sure there is a very wise and wonderful being who designed, constructed, and operates this existence as we mortals know it: this universe with its galaxies and spiral nebulae, its stars and moons and planets and beautiful women, its trees and pearls and deep green moss—and its hopes and prayers for peace.

最後一點，也是對我而言最重要的一點，我深深信仰上帝。我確信有一位非常睿智和神奇的神靈設計、建造並統治這個世界，就像我們凡人所認識的樣子：這個宇宙有星羣、螺旋型的星雲、星星、月亮、行星、美女、樹木、珍珠和深綠的苔蘚，還有希望和對和平的祈禱。