Starbucks invades Parisian cafe culture (1)
The beauty industry (2)
Holiday Headache (2)
Arthritis all-clear for high heels (3)
Disney World (4)
Secrets to a Great Life (5)
The 50-Percent Theory of Life (6)
The Road to Happiness (7)
Six Famous Words (8)
Write Your Own Life (8)
Starbucks invades Parisian cafe culture
A form of alien civilisation has finally landed in Paris - unfamiliar green and black signs have appeared on the Avenue de L'Opera.
It is the first Starbucks cafe to boldly go where no Starbucks has gone before, onto potentially hostile French territory.
Its advertising posters on the Champs Elysee announce "Starbucks - a passion pour le cafe".
But is the company aware of the risk it is taking by challenging the very birthplace of cafe society?
"I think every time we come into a new market we do it with a great sense of respect, a great deal of interest in how that cafe society has developed over time," Bill O'Shea of Starbucks says.
"We recognise there is a huge history here of cafe society and we have every confidence we can enjoy, augment and join in that passion."
And he may be right. Despite some sniffiness in the French press, some younger French are expressing their excitement that they will finally be able to visit the kind of cafe they love to watch on the US TV series Friends.
In fact, for some, it is an exotic rarity, far more exciting than the average French cafe.
Melissa, aged 18, says she can hardly wait: "I love Starbucks caramel coffee - it's very good and I like the concept that they're opening in Paris. I think Starbucks will be OK for French people."
An American tourist is equally excited when she spots the sign - this could be just the thing to help her get over the occasional twinge of homesickness.
"I love the French cafes, but Starbucks is so popular in the States and it's become part of American culture and now it's come to France, and that's OK," she said.
But that is the problem for many French, who do not want France to be just like the rest of the world: with standardised disposal cups of coffee - identical in 7,000 branches around the world - even if they are termed handcrafted beverages.
At the traditional cafes, customers worry that the big US coffee house chains could drive out small, family-owned cafes.
Others here think they could come round to the idea of Starbucks, though for them it would never replace the corner cafe or the typical Parisian petit noir coffee.
The beauty industry
The one American industry unaffeted by the general depression of trade is the beauty industry. American women continue to spend on their faces and bodies as much as they spent before the coming of the slump--about three million pounds a week. These facts and figures are 'official', and can be accepted as being substantially true.
The modern cult of beauty is not exclusively a function of wealth. If it were, then the personal appearance industries would have been as hit by the trade depression as any other business. But, as we have seen, they have not suffered.Women are retrenching on other things than their faces.
Women, it is obvious, are freer than in the past. Freer not only to perform the generally unenviable social functions hithero reserved to the male, but also freer to exercise the more pleasing, feminine privilege of being attractive. The fortunes are made justly by face-cream manufacturers and beauty-specialists, by the sellers of rubber reducing-belts and massage machines, by the patentees of hair-lotions and the authors of books on the culture of the abdomen.
It is a success in so far as more women retain their youthful appearance to a greater age than in the past. The Portrait of the Artist's Mother will come to be almost indisinguishable, at future picture shows, from the Portrai of the Artist's Daughter. The success is part due to skin foods and injections of paraffin-wax, facial surgery, mud baths, and paint, and in part due to impoved health. So for some people, the campaign for more beauty is also a compaign for more health. Beauty that is merely the artificial shadow of these symptoms of heslth is intrinsically of poorer quality than the genuine article. Still, it is a sufficiently good imitation to be sometimes mistakable for the real thing. Every middle-in-come preson can afford the cosmetic apparatus and more knowledge of the way in which real herlth can be achieved is being universally aced upon. When that happy moment comes, will every woman be beautiful-as beautiful, at any rate, as the natural shape of her features? The answer is apparent: No,for real beauty is as much an affair of the inner as of the outer self.
Holiday Headache
All I wanted was a cozy log cabin in the state of Maine, somewhere deep in the woods, to hang out under the stars. It was to be my first vacation with my boyfriend, and I wanted it to be perfect.
So rather than waste money on a guidebook that was bound to be outdated before it appeared on the shelves of my local bookstore, I decided to search online. Little did I know that when I typed the words “Maine log cabin rental”at https://www.doczj.com/doc/ee10038750.html,, I was stepping into 48 hours of Internet hell. Forget dinner, forget work, forget sleep. I was glued to my computer for hours clicking from one listing to another to find the perfect hideaway.
I was wrong. The first site that I tried, https://www.doczj.com/doc/ee10038750.html,, grouped rentals by region but had no map to tell me where such romantic-sounding, places as Seal Cove or Owl’s Head were. So I had to log on to https://www.doczj.com/doc/ee10038750.html, to locate each one, then return to slogging through listings.Another site, https://www.doczj.com/doc/ee10038750.html,, let me find 50 cabins and cottages right off, but most of the rentals turned out to be closed for the winter.
I learned only after reading a lot of fine print. One day and hundreds of listings later, I was ready to throw my computer out the window. For every 10 vacation spots I looked into, I found maybe one that sounded good and more often than not, it was booked, too far away, or outrageously priced. Searching on line was really giving me a headache.I finally decided to put our log-cabin Web dreams on hold and search the old-fashioned way at a bookstore. I bought a paperback book called America’s Favorite Inns, B&Bs, and Small Hotels. I was relieved to see that each city was neatly pinpointed on a detailed map, and most had good descriptions to help me figure out where in Maine we should go in the first place.
Then I found it: an old inn on the southern coast of Maine that rented us one of its best rooms for $100 a night. Guess what? It didn’t have a Website. I took my chances based on a good review, a great location and a bargain price. It wasn’t a log cabin, and it was far from the woods, but there were lace curtains, a hardwood floor and a quilt on the bed. With the ocean outside our window and a fireplace in the room, my holiday was just as cozy as I dreamed it would be.
Arthritis all-clear for high heels
Fears that wearing high-heeled shoes could lead to knee arthritis are
unfounded,sayresearchers.
But being overweight,smoking,and having a previous knee injury does increase the risk,the team from Oxford Brookes Universtity found.
They looked at more than 100 women aged between 50 and 70 waiting for knee surgery, and found that choice of shoes was not a factor
The study was published in the Journal of Epidemilology and public health.
More than 2% of the population aged over 55 suffers extreme pain as a result of osteoarthrits of the knee.
The condition is twice as common in 65-year-old women as it is in men of the same age.
Women's and men's knees are not biologically different, so the reserachers wanted to find out why twice as many women as men develop osteoarthritis in the joint.
Some researchers have speculated tha high-heeled shoes maybe to blame.
The women in the study were quizzed on details of their height and weight when they left school, between 36 and 40 and between 51 and 55.
They were asked about injuries, their jobs, smoking and use of contraceptive hormones.
Howere, while many of these factors were linked to an increased risk over the years was not.
The researchers wrote:"Most of the women had been exposed to high heeled shoes over the years-nevertheless, a consistent finding was a reduced risk of osteoarthritis of the knee.
There was an even more pronounced link between regular dancing in three-inch heels and a reduced risk of knee problems.
The researchers described this finding as "surprising", but said that they would not expect a larger-scale study to overturn their findings.
Disney World
Disney World, Florida, is the biggest amusement resort in the world. It covers 24.4 thousand acres, and is twice the size of Manhattan. It was opened on October 1 1971, five years after Walt Disney’s death, and it is a larger, slightly more am bitious version of Disneyland near Los Angeles.
Foreigners tend to associate Walt Disney with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and with his other famous cartoon characters, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
There is very little that could be called vulgar in Disney World. It attracts people of most tastes and most income groups, and people of all ages, from toddlers to grandpas. There are two expensive hotels, a golf course, forest trails for horseback riding and rivers for canoeing. But the central attraction of the resort is the MagicKingdom.
Between the huge parking lots and the MagicKingdom lies a broad artificial lake. In the distance rise the towers of Cinderella’s Castle. Even getting to the MagicKingdom is quite an adventure. You have a choice of transportation. You can either cross the lake on a replica of a Mississippipaddlewheeler, or you can glide around the shore in a streamlined monorail train.
When you reach the terminal, you walk straight into a little square which faces Main Street. Main Street is late 19th century. There are modern shops inside the buildings, but all the facades are of the period. There are hanging baskets full of red and white flowers, and
there is no traffic except a horse-drawn streetcar and an ancient double-decker bus. Yet as you walk through the MagicKingdom, you are actually walking on top of a network of underground roads. This is how the shops, restaurants and all other material needs of the MagicKingdom are invisibly supplied.
Secrets to a Great Life
A great life doesn’t happen by accident. A great life is the result of allocating your time, energy, thoughts, and hard work towards what you want your life to be.Stop setting yourself up for stress and failure, and start setting up your life to support success and ease.
A great life is the result of using the 24/7 you get in a creative and thoughtful way, instead of just what comes next. Customize these “secrets” to fit your own needs and style, and start creating your own great life today!
1. S—Simplify.
A great life is the result of simplifying your life. When you focus on simplifying your life, you free up energy and time for the work that you enjoy and the purpose for which you are here. In order to create a great life, you will have to make room for it in yours first.
2. E—Effort.
A great life is the result of your best effort. Creating a great life requires that you make some adjustments. It means looking for new ways to spend your energy that coincide with your particular definition of a great life. Life will reward your best effort.
3. C—Create Priorities.
A great life is the result of creating priorities. It’s easy to spend your days just responding to the next thing that gets your attention, instead of intentionally using the time, energy and money you have in a way th at’s important to you. Make sure you are honoring your priorities.
4. R—Reserves.
A great life is the result of having reserves—reserves of things, time, space, energy, money. With reserves, you acquire far more than you need. Reserves are important because they reduce the fear of consequences, and that allows you to make decisions based on what you really want instead of what the fear decides for you.
5. E—Eliminate distractions.
A great life is the result of eliminating distractions. Look around at someone’s life you admire. What do they do that you would like to incorporate into your own life? Ask them how they did it. Find ways to free up your mental energy for things that are more important to you.
6. T—Thoughts.
A great life is the result of controlling your thoughts so that you accept and allow for the possibility that it actually can happen to you! Your belief in the outcome will directly dictate how successful you are. Motivated people have specific goals and look for ways to achieve them.
7. S—Start.
A great life is the result of starting. There’s the old saying everyone’s familiar with “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. There’s no better time to start than today.
Don’t wait for a raise, or until the kids get older, or the weather is better. It’s what you do TODAY that will make a difference in your life tomorrow.
The 50-Percent Theory of Life
I believe in the 50-percent theory. Half the time things are better than normal; the other half, they are worse. I believe life is a pendulum swing. It takes time and experience to understand what normal is, and that gives me the perspective to deal with the surprises of the future.
Let’s benchmark the parameters: Yes, I will die. I’ve dealt with the deaths of both parents, a best friend, a beloved boss and cherished pets. Some of these deaths have been violent, before my eyes, or slow and agonizing. Bad stuff, and it belongs at the bottom of the scale. Then there are those high points: romance and marriage to the right person; having a child and doing those Dad things like coaching my son’s baseball team, paddling around the creek in the boat while he’s swimming with the dogs, discovering his compassion so deep it manifests even in his kindness to snails, his imagination so vivid he builds a spaceship from a scattered pile of Legos.
But there is a vast meadow of life in the middle, where the bad and the good flip-flop acrobatically. This is what convinces me to believe in the50-percent theory.One spring I planted corn too early in a bottomland so flood-prone that neighbors laughed. I felt chagrined at the wasted effort. Summer turned brutal—the worst heat wave and drought in my lifetime. The air-conditioner died, the well went dry, the marriage ended, the job lost, the money gone. I was living lyrics from a country tune—music I disliked. Only a surging Kansas City Royals team, bound for their first World Series, buoyed my spirits.Looking back on that horrible summer, I soon understood that all succeeding good things merely offset the bad. Worse than normal wouldn’t last long. I am owed and savor the peaceful and happy times. They reinvigorate me for the next nasty surprise and offer assurance that I can thrive.
The 50 percent theory even helps me see hope beyond my Royals’ recent slump, a field of struggling rookies sown so that some year soon we can reap an October harvest. Oh, yeah, the corn crop? For that one blistering summer, the ground moisture was just right, planting early allowed pollination before heat withered the tops, and the lack of rain spared the standing corn from floods. That winter my crib overflowed with corn—fat, healthy
three-to-a-stalk ears filled with kernels from heel to tip—while my neighbors’ fields yielded only brown, empty husks.
Although plantings past may have fallen below the 50-percent expectation, and they probably will again in the future, I am still sustained by the crop that flourishes during the drought.
The Road to Happiness
It is a commonplace among moralists that you cannot get happiness by pursuing it. This is only true if you pursue it unwisely. Gamblers at Monte Carlo are pursuing money, and most of them lose it instead, but there are other ways of pursuing money, which often succeed. So it is with happiness. If you pursue it by means of drink, you are forgetting the hangover.
Epicurus pursued it by living only in congenial society and eating only dry bread, supplemented by a little cheese on feast days. His method proved successful in his case, but he was a valetudinarian, and most people would need something more vigorous.
For most people, the pursuit of happiness, unless supplemented in various ways, is too abstract and theoretical to be adequate as a personal rule of life. But I think that whatever personal rule of life you may choose it should not, except in rare and heroic cases, be incompatible with happiness.If you look around at the men and women whom you can call happy, will see that they all have certain things in common. The most important of these things is an activity which at most gradually builds up something that you are glad to see coming into existence.
Women who take an instinctive pleasure in their children can get this kind of satisfaction out of bringing up a family. Artists and authors and men of science get happiness in this way if their own work seems good to them. But there are many humbler forms of the same kind of pleasure. Many men who spend their working life in the city devote their weekends to voluntary and unremunerated toil in their gardens, and when the spring comes, they experience all the joys of having created beauty.
The whole subject of happiness has, in my opinion, been treated too solemnly. It had been thought that man cannot be happy without a theory of life or a religion. Perhaps those who have been rendered unhappy by a bad theory may need a better theory to help them to recover, just as you may need a tonic when you have been ill. But when things are normal a man should be healthy ]without a tonic and happy without a theory. It is the simple things that really matter.
If a man delights in his wife and children, has success in work, and finds pleasure in the alternation of day and night, spring and autumn, he will be happy whatever his philosophy may be. If, on the other hand, he finds his wife fateful, his chil dren’s noise unendurable, and the office a nightmare; if in the daytime he longs for night, and at night sighs for the light of day, then what he needs is not a new philosophy but a new regimen—a different diet, or more exercise, or what not.
Man is an animal, and his happiness depends on his physiology more than he likes to think. This is a humble conclusion, but I cannot make myself disbelieve it. Unhappy businessmen, I am would increase their happiness more by walking six miles every day than by any conceivable change of philosophy.
Six Famous Words
“To be or not to be.” Outside the Bible, these six words are the most famous in all the literature of the world. They were spoken by Hamlet when he was thinking aloud, and they are the most famous words in Shakespearebecause Hamlet was speaking not only for himself but also for every thinking man and woman.
To be or not to be, to live or not to live, to live richly and abundantly and eagerly, or to live dully and meanly and scarcely. A philosopher once wanted to know whether he was alive or not, which is a good question for everyone to put to himself occasionally. He answered it by saying: “I think, therefore I am.”But the best definition of existence I ever saw was one written by another philosopher who said: “To be is to be in relations.” If this is true, then the more relations a living thing has, the more it is alive.
To live abundantly means simply to increase the range and intensity of our relations. Unfortunately we are so constituted that we get to love our routine. But apart from our regular occupation how much are we alive? If you are interested only in your regular occupation, you are alive only to that extent. So far as other things are concerned—poetry and prose, music, pictures, sports, unselfish friendships, politics, international affairs—you are dead. Contrariwise, it is true that every time you acquire a new interest—even more, a new accomplishment—you increase your power of life.
No one who is deeply interested in a large variety of subjects can remain unhappy, the real pessimist is the person who has lost interest. Bacon said that a man dies as often as he loses a friend. But we gain new life by contacts and new friends.
What is supremely true of living objects is only less true of ideas, which are also alive. Where your thoughts are, there will your life be also. If your thoughts are confined only to your business, only to your physical welfare, only to the narrow circle of the town in which you live, then you live in a narrow-circled life. But if you are interested in what is going on in China, then you are living in China—if you’re interested in the characters of a good novel, then you are living with those highly interesting people, if you listen intently to fine music, you are away from your immediate surroundings and living in a world of passion and imagination.
To be or not to be—to live intensely and richly, merely to exist, that depends on ourselves. Let widen and intensify our relations. While we live, let live!
Write Your Own Life
Suppose someone gave you a pen—a sealed, solid-colored pen. You couldn’t see how much ink it had. It might run dry after the first few tentative words or last just long enough to
create a masterpiece (or several) that would last forever and make a difference in the scheme of things. You don’t know before you begin. Under the rules of the game, you really never know. You have to take a chance!
Actually, no rule of the game states you must do anything. Instead of picking up and using the pen, you could leave it on a shelf or in a drawer where it will dry up, unused. But if you do decide to use it, what would you do with it?
How would you play the game?
Would you plan and plan before you ever wrote a word? Would your plans be so extensive that you never even got to the writing? Or would you take the pen in hand, plunge right in and just do it, struggling to keep up with the twists and turns of the torrents of words that take you where they take you? Would you write cautiously and carefully, as if the pen might run dry the next moment, or would you pretend or believe (or pretend to believe) that the pen will write forever and proceed accordingly?And of what would you write: Of love? Hate? Fun?Misery?Life?Death?Nothing?Everything?
Would you write to please just yourself?Or others? Or yourself by writing for others?
Would your strokes be tremblingly timid or brilliantly bold? Fancy with a flourish or plain?
Would you even write? Once you have the pen, no rule says you have to write.
Would you sketch? Scribble? Doodle or draw?
Would you stay in or on the lines, or see no lines at all, even if they were there? Or are they?
There’s a lot to think about here, isn’t there? Now, suppose someone gave you a life…
【晨读英语美文100篇】晨读英语美文中英对照版英语晨读365 116 Virtue 美德 Sweet day,so cool,so calm,so bright! 甜美的白昼，如此凉爽、安宁、明媚！ The bridal of the earth and sky- 天地间完美的匹配----- The dew shall weep thy fall to-night; 今宵的露珠儿将为你的消逝而落泪； For thou must die. 因为你必须离去。 Sweet rose,whose hue angry and brave, 美丽的玫瑰，色泽红润艳丽， Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, 令匆匆而过的人拭目而视，Thy root is ever in its grave, 你的根永远扎在坟墓里， And thou must die. 而你必须消逝。 Sweet spring,full of sweet days and roses, 美妙的春天，充满了美好的日子和芳香的玫瑰， A box where sweets compacted lie, 如一支芬芳满溢的盒子， My music shows ye have your closes, 我的音乐表明你们也有终止， And all must die, 万物都得消逝。 Only a sweet and virtuous soul, 唯有美好而正直的心灵， Like season'd timber,never gives; 犹如干燥备用的木料，永
不走样； But though the whole world turn to coal, 纵然整个世界变为灰烬， Then chiefly lives. 它依然流光溢彩。 英语晨读365 115 Equipment 装备 Figure it out for yourself, my lad. You have got all that the great have had: two arms, two legs, two hands, two eyes, and a brain to use if you'd be wise. With this equipment they all began, so start for the top and say" I can". Look them over the wise and the great. They take their food from a common plate. With similar knives and forks they use; with similar laces they tie their shoes. The world considers them brave and smart, but you know--- you have got all they had when they made their start. You can triumph and come to skill; you can be great if you only will. You are well equipped for the fight you choose you have arms and legs and brains to use. And people who have risen, great deeds to do started their lives with no more than you. You are the handicap you must face. You are the one who must choose your place. You must say where you want to go, and how much you will study the truth to know. God has equipped you for life, but he lets you decide what you want to be.
生而为赢（中文翻译） ——新东方英语背诵美文30篇 目录： ·第一篇：Y outh 青春 ·第二篇：Three Days to See(Excerpts)假如给我三天光明（节选） ·第三篇：Companionship of Books 以书为伴（节选） ·第四篇：If I Rest, I Rust 如果我休息，我就会生锈 ·第五篇：Ambition 抱负 ·第六篇：What I have Lived for 我为何而生 ·第七篇：When Love Beckons Y ou 爱的召唤 ·第八篇：The Road to Success 成功之道 ·第九篇：On Meeting the Celebrated 论见名人 ·第十篇：The 50-Percent Theory of Life 生活理论半对半 ·第十一篇What is Y our Recovery Rate? 你的恢复速率是多少？ ·第十二篇：Clear Y our Mental Space 清理心灵的空间 ·第十三篇：Be Happy 快乐 ·第十四篇：The Goodness of life 生命的美好 ·第十五篇：Facing the Enemies Within 直面内在的敌人 ·第十六篇：Abundance is a Life Style 富足的生活方式 ·第十七篇：Human Life a Poem 人生如诗 ·第十八篇：Solitude 独处 ·第十九篇：Giving Life Meaning 给生命以意义 ·第二十篇：Relish the Moment 品位现在 ·第二十一篇：The Love of Beauty 爱美 ·第二十二篇：The Happy Door 快乐之门 ·第二十三篇：Born to Win 生而为赢 ·第二十四篇：W ork and Pleasure 工作和娱乐 ·第二十五篇：Mirror, Mirror--What do I see镜子,镜子,告诉我 ·第二十六篇：On Motes and Beams 微尘与栋梁 ·第二十七篇：An October Sunrise 十月的日出 ·第二十八篇：To Be or Not to Be 生存还是毁灭 ·第二十九篇：Gettysburg Address 葛底斯堡演说 ·第三十篇：First Inaugural Address(Excerpts) 就职演讲（节选） 1．青春-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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。
Autumn Sunset We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before setting, after a cold gray day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon, and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon, and on the leaves of the shrub-oaks on the hill-si de, while our shadows stretched long over the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment be fore, and the air also was so warm and serene that nothing wanted to make a paradise of that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, never to happe n again, but that it would happen forever and ever an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child that walked there, it was more glorious still. The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and, perchance, as it has never set before, --where there is but a solitary marsh-hawk to have his wings gilded by it, or only a masques lookout from his cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gildi ng t he withered grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of ev ery wood and rising ground gleamed like a boundary of Ely-sium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving us home at evening. So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has don e, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn. 最近十一月的一天，我们目睹了一个极其美丽的日落。当我象平时一样漫步于一道小溪发 源处的草地之上，那高空的太阳，终于在一个凄苦的寒天之后、暮夕之前，突于天际骤放澄明。这时但见远方天幕下的衰草残茎，山边的树叶橡丛，登时浸在一片柔美而耀眼的绮照之中，而我们自己的身影也长长地伸向草地的东方，仿佛是那缕斜耀中仅有的点点微尘。周 围的风物是那么妍美，一晌之前还是难以想象，空气也是那么和暖纯净，一时这普通草原实在无异于天上景象。但是这眼前之景难道一定是亘古以来不曾有过的特殊奇观?说不定自有天日以来，每个暮夕便都是如此，因而连跑动在这里的幼小孩童也会觉得自在欣悦。想到这些，这幅景象也就益发显得壮丽起来。 此刻那落日的余晕正以它全部的灿烂与辉煌，也不分城市还是乡村，甚至以往日少见的艳丽，尽情斜映在这一带境远地僻的草地之上;这里没有一间房舍——茫茫之中只瞥见一头孤零零的沼鹰，背羽上染尽了金黄，一只麝香鼠正在洞穴口探头，另外在沼泽之间望见了一股水色黝黑的小溪，蜿蜒曲折，绕行于一堆残株败根之旁。我们漫步于其中的光照，是这样的纯美与熠耀，满目衰草树叶，一片金黄，晃晃之中又是这般柔和和恬静，没有一丝涟漪，一息呜
星火四级晨读英语美文100篇【励志感悟】第7篇 Excuses Some people go through life standing at the excuse counter. People say they'd like to do this or that,but...then they offer all the excuses in the world why they can't do whatever it is.No matter what the excuses are,the only thing usually limiting them is their own self-perception. If I've learned anyhing,I've learned a person--any person--can do just about anything they set their mind to.The only thing they need is a willingness to work for what you want,patience to learn what you need to know,and just a little bit of belief in yourself,but you only need a seed.Your faith in yourself will grow with you as you move forward. If you self-perception is that you can't accompilsh somthing because you're not smart enough,then take the time to learn what you need to know and your self-perception will change. If your self-perception is that you can't accompilsh something because you never finsh anything you start,then go finsh something and change your self-perception. If your self-perception is that you're too lazy,too bust,too unworthy,too unfocused,too depressed,too dependent on others,the you're right.You are that because you believe that,but you can change that! Life is change,and the past doesn't equal the future.Your today is the result of your past beliefs and actions.Change your beliefs and action and you change your future.If you think you can or you can't,you're right.You are what you think. Think about that the next time you need an excuse. 翻译： 借口 有些人站在“借口”这一柜台后虚度一生。 有人说，自己想做这个，想做那个，但是······于是便给出他们所能找到的各种借口，来解释自己为什么不能去做这些事。无论借口是什么，大概唯一能限制他们行动的只是他们的自我意识。 如果说我学到了什么，那就是我意识到一个人——任何人——都可以做他决定想做的一切。你唯一需要的是：为理想而努力的意志，学习所需知识的耐心和一点点自信。其实最需要的只是自信的一粒小小的种籽。自信会随着你的进步而增强。如果你自以为不够聪明而无法成功，那就花时间去学习你所需要的知识，这样你的自我感觉就会改变。 如果你认为自己太懒惰，太忙碌，太无足轻重，太不专心，太消沉，太依赖别人，太这样太那样而不能成大器，那么你是对的。你相信如此，便会如此。但你能改变一切。 生活无时无刻不在变化，过去不等于将来。你的现在是你过去的信念与行动的结果。改变信念和行动就会改变你的未来。你认为自己能或不能，你都是对的。你就是你所认为的样子。 下次需要找借口时，请好好想想
·第一篇：Youth 青春 Youth Youth is not a time of life; it's a state of mind; it's not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it's a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it's the freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a tempera-mental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for the adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than of 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 spring back to dust. Whether 60 or 16 ,there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what's next and
The beauty industry ................................................... 错误!未定义书签。 Holiday Headache ...................................................... 错误!未定义书签。 Arthritis all-clear for high heels .................................... 错误!未定义书签。 Disney World .......................................................... 错误!未定义书签。 Secrets to a Great Life ............................................... 错误!未定义书签。 The 50-Percent Theory of Life ......................................... 错误!未定义书签。 The Road to Happiness ................................................. 错误!未定义书签。 Six Famous Words ...................................................... 错误!未定义书签。 Write Your Own Life ................................................... 错误!未定义书签。 Starbucks invades Parisian cafe culture A form of alien civilisation has finally landed in Paris - unfamiliar green and black signs have appeared on the Avenue de L'Opera. It is the first Starbucks cafe to boldly go where no Starbucks has gone before, onto potentially hostile French territory. Its advertising posters on the Champs Elysee announce "Starbucks - a passion pour le cafe". But is the company aware of the risk it is taking by challenging the very birthplace of cafe society "I think every time we come into a new market we do it with a great sense of respect, a great deal of interest in how that cafe society has developed over time," Bill O'Shea of Starbucks says. "We recognise there is a huge history here of cafe society and we have every confidence we can enjoy, augment and join in that passion."
晨读英语美文100篇 Passage1. Knowledge and Virtue Knowledge 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 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 life—these are the 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 heartless, 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 hypocrisy,not, I repeat, from
生而为赢——英语背诵美文30 篇 目录： ·第一篇：Youth 青春 ·第二篇： Three Days to See(Excerpts)假如给我三天光明（节选） ·第三篇：Companionship of Books 以书为伴（节选） ·第四篇：If I Rest, I Rust 如果我休息，我就会生锈 ·第五篇：Ambition 抱负 ·第六篇：What I have Lived for 我为何而生 ·第七篇：When Love Beckons You 爱的召唤 ·第八篇：The Road to Success 成功之道 ·第九篇：On Meeting the Celebrated 论见名人 ·第十篇：The 50-Percent Theory of Life 生活理论半对半 ·第十一篇：What is Your Recovery Rate? 你的恢复速率是多少？ ·第十二篇：Clear Your Mental Space 清理心灵的空间 ·第十三篇：Be Happy 快乐 ·第十四篇：The Goodness of life 生命的美好 ·第十五篇：Facing the Enemies Within 直面内在的敌人 ·第十六篇：Abundance is a Life Style 富足的生活方式 ·第十七篇：Human Life a Poem 人生如诗 ·第十八篇：Solitude 独处 ·第十九篇：Giving Life Meaning 给生命以意义 2 ·第二十篇：Relish the Moment 品位现在 ·第二十一篇：The Love of Beauty 爱美 ·第二十二篇：The Happy Door 快乐之门 ·第二十三篇：Born to Win 生而为赢 ·第二十四篇：Work and Pleasure 工作和娱乐 ·第二十五篇：Mirror, Mirror--What do I see 镜子,镜子,告诉我 ·第二十六篇：On Motes and Beams 微尘与栋梁 ·第二十七篇：An October Sunrise 十月的日出 ·第二十八篇：To Be or Not to Be 生存还是毁灭 ·第二十九篇：Gettysburg Address 葛底斯堡演说 ·第三十篇：First Inaugural Address(Excerpts) 就职演讲（节选） ·第三篇：Companionship of Books 以书为伴（节选） Companionship of Books A man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as by the company he keeps; for there is a companionship of books as well as of men; and one should always live in the best company, whether it be of books or of men. A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same today that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and cheerful of companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness; amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting and
星火四级晨读英语美文100篇【励志感悟】第17篇 The Power of Beauty One of the most successful, influential and beloved women in American history, Eleanor Roosevelt once said that she had one regret: she wished she had been prettier. Who hasn’t felt the same way? We are all too aware of our physical imperfections. To overcome them, we spend billions upon billions of dollars every year on cosmetics, diet products, fashion, and plastic surgery. Why do we care so much about how we look? Because it matters. Because beauty is powerful. Because even when we learn to value people mostly for being kind and wise and funny, we are still moved by beauty. No matter how much we argue against it or pretend to be immune, beauty exerts its power over us. There is simply no escape. Aristotle said, “Beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction.” It’s not fair, but it’s true. We simply treat beautiful people better than we do others. Attach a photograph of a beautiful author to an essay, and people will think that is more creative and more intelligently written than exactly the same essay accompanied by the photo of a homely author. Our sensitivity to physical beauty is not something we can control at will. We are born with it. Experiments conducted by psychologist Judith J. Langlois showed that even small infants prefer to look at attractive faces. Before they have met a single supermodel, before they have watched a single TV show, before they have opened up a single fashion magazine, they are drawn to the same faces which adults have judged to be attractive. There are more important things in life than beauty. But as Etcoff says, “We have to understand beauty, or we will always be enslaved by it.” If you aim to be wise and kind and funny, it doesn’t mean that you can’t also try your best to look beautiful. There’s no reason to feel guilty about being moved by beauty’s power. It moves us all. 翻译： 美的力量 身为美国史上最成功、最有影响力且最受人喜爱的女性之一的罗斯福夫人曾说她有一个遗憾：她希望自己长得更漂亮。谁没有过同样的想法呢？我们都强烈感觉到自己身体的缺陷。为了克服缺陷，我们每年都要花费几十亿美元--在化妆品、减肥食品、流行时尚与整容手术上。 我们如此这么在意自己的外貌？因为它很重要。因为美的力量很大。因为即使我们学着基本上去看重仁慈、智能、风趣的人，但我们仍会受到美的感动。无论我们多么用力辩驳，或假装对它免疫，美仍然对我们产生影响。根本无法逃避。 亚里斯多德说：“美是比任何介绍信都要有用的推荐函。”这并不公平，但却是事实。我们就是会对美丽的人比较好。把一位美丽作家的照片贴在作品上，读者就会认为这篇文章较有创意，写得更有智能。完全相同的文章配上相貌平凡的作家照片，评价就会较低。 我们对外在美的敏感，不是可以控制自如的。我们天生就这么敏感。心理学家朱迪丝蓝洛斯的实验显示，就连小婴儿也喜欢看漂亮的脸。他们从来没有见过超级名模、没看过电视节目，也没翻开过时尚杂志，却已经受到大人也认为有魅力的脸庞所吸引。 人生中有比美丽更重要的事，但就如艾特考夫所说：“我们必须了解美，否则我们永远都会是它的奴隶。”如果你的目标是要聪明、仁慈又风趣，这并不代表你就不能尽力让自己变得漂亮。被美的力量感动，并不需要有罪恶感，因为所有的人都受它感动。
星火晨读四级英语美文篇 篇一：星火四级晨读英语美文100篇【励志感悟】第18篇星火四级晨读英语美文100篇【励志感悟】第18篇 What is Life About ? What is life about? We push very hard everyday to make more money, to gain power and recognition. We neglect our health, time with our family and to appreciate the surrounding beauty and the hobbies we love to do. One day when we look back, we will realize that we don t really need that much, but then we cannot turn back time for what we have missed. Life is not about making money, acquiring power or recognition. Life is definitely not about work! Work is only necessary to keep us living so as to enjoy the beauty and pleasures of life. Life is a balance of work and play, family and personal time. You have to decide how you want to balance your life.Define your priorities, realize what you are able to compromise but always let some of your decisions be based on your instincts. Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life,the whole aim of human existence. So, take it easy, do what you want to do and appreciate nature. Life is fragile. Life is short. Do not take life for granted. Live a balanced lifestyle and enjoy life! 翻译：生活的意义生活是关于什么的呢?我们每天努力地去赚更多的钱，去得到权力和认可。我们忽视了我们的健康，忽视了与家人在一起的时间，忽视了欣赏周围的美丽，忽视了自己的爱好。某一天当我们往回看的时候，我们会发现自己其实真正需要的并不是太多，但是时光不能倒转，我们也找不回失去的东西。生活不是赚钱，不是去追求权利和别人的认可。生活绝对不只是工作! 工作只是帮助我们去生存，以便于我们享受生活中的荚丽和快乐。生活是一种工作时间和玩乐时间，家庭时间和个人时间的平衡。你必须自己去决定怎么去平衡你的生活。确定你自己最先做什么，明白什么是可以迟些做的，但是总体来说，让你的一些决定跟着你的本能走。快乐是生活的意义和目的，是人类存在的整个目标。所以，放松点，去做那些你想做的事情，重视自然。生活是脆弱的，短暂的。不要把生活想得理所当然，过一种平衡的生活方式，去享受生活吧。篇二：星火四级晨读英语美文100篇【励志感悟】第20篇星火四级晨读英语美文100
Starbucks invades Parisian cafe culture (1) The beauty industry (2) Holiday Headache (2) Arthritis all-clear for high heels (3) Disney World (4) Secrets to a Great Life (5) The 50-Percent Theory of Life (6) The Road to Happiness (7) Six Famous Words (8) Write Your Own Life (8) Starbucks invades Parisian cafe culture A form of alien civilisation has finally landed in Paris - unfamiliar green and black signs have appeared on the Avenue de L'Opera. It is the first Starbucks cafe to boldly go where no Starbucks has gone before, onto potentially hostile French territory. Its advertising posters on the Champs Elysee announce "Starbucks - a passion pour le cafe". But is the company aware of the risk it is taking by challenging the very birthplace of cafe society "I think every time we come into a new market we do it with a great sense of respect, a great deal of interest in how that cafe society has developed over time," Bill O'Shea of Starbucks says. "We recognise there is a huge history here of cafe society and we have every confidence we can enjoy, augment and join in that passion." And he may be right. Despite some sniffiness in the French press, some younger French are expressing their excitement that they will finally be able to visit the kind of cafe they love to watch on the US TV series Friends. In fact, for some, it is an exotic rarity, far more exciting than the average French cafe. Melissa, aged 18, says she can hardly wait: "I love Starbucks caramel coffee - it's very good and I like the concept that they're opening in Paris. I think Starbucks will be OK for French people." An American tourist is equally excited when she spots the sign - this could be just the thing to help her get over the occasional twinge of homesickness. "I love the French cafes, but Starbucks is so popular in the States and it's become part of American culture and now it's come to France, and that's OK," she said.