大学英语文章（大学期间读的两篇经典英语文章）

What I Have Lived For 我为何而生

伯特兰罗素

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unb百思特网earable pity for the suffering of mankind, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy---ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of my life for a few hours for 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 the 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 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 men. I have wishe百思特网d to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. 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 it brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate 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.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

我为何而生

　　我的一生被三种简略却又无比强烈的豪情所掌握：对爱的盼望，对知识的摸索和对人类苦难难以克制的怜悯。这些豪情像狂风，把我恣情吹向四方，掠过苦痛的大海，迫使我濒临失望的边沿。
　　我追求爱，首先因为它使我心为之着迷，这种难以名状的美好迷醉使我愿意用所有的余生去换取哪怕几个小时这样的幸福。我追求爱，还因为它能缓解我心理上的孤单中，我感到心灵的战栗，仿如站在世界的边沿而面前是冰凉，无底的逝世亡深渊。我追求爱，因为在百思特网我所目睹的联合中，我仿佛看到了圣贤与诗人们所神往的天堂之景。这就是我所寻找的，虽然对人的一生而言似乎有些遥不可及，但至少是我用尽一生所领悟到的。
　　我用同样的豪情去追求知识。我愿望能懂得人类的心灵，愿望能够知道群星闪耀的缘由。我试图领悟毕达哥拉斯所景仰的“数即万物”的思想。我已经悟出了其中的一点点道理，尽管并不是很多。
　　爱和知识，用它们的力气把人引向天堂。但是同情却总把人又拽回到尘世中来。苦楚的呼喊声回荡在我的心坎。饥饿的孩子，受压迫的难民，贫穷和苦楚的世界，都是对人类所向往的美妙生涯的无情嘲弄。我盼望能够减少邪恶，但是我无能为力，我也难逃其折磨。
　　这就是我的一生。我已经找到它的价值。而且如果有机遇，我很愿意能再活它一次。

译文的另一版本：吾之三愿

吾生三愿，纯朴却激越：一曰盼望爱情，二曰求索知识，三曰悲悯吾类之无尽苦难。此三愿，如疾风，迫吾无助飘零于苦水深海之上，直达失望之彼岸。

吾求爱，盖因其赐吾狂喜——狂喜之剧足令吾舍此生而享其片刻；吾求爱，亦因其可驱寂寞之感，吾人每生寂寞之情辄兢兢俯视天地之缘，而见失望之无底深渊；吾求爱还因若得爱，即可窥视圣哲诗人所见之神秘天国。此吾生之所求，虽虑其之至美而恐终不为凡人所得，亦可谓吾之所得也。

吾求知亦怀斯豪情。吾愿闻人之所思，亦愿知星之何以闪光……吾仅得此而已，无他。

爱与知并力，几携吾入天国之门，然终为悲悯之心拖拽未果。苦楚之吟常缭绕吾心：受饥饿之婴，遭压迫之民，为儿女抛弃之无助老叟，加之天下之孤寂、贫穷、苦痛，具令吾类之生难以卒睹。吾愿穷终生之力释之，然终不能遂愿，因亦悲极。

吾生若此而已，然吾颇感未枉此生；若得天允，当乐而重为之。

Youth 青春

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind. It is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees. It is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep spring of life. 
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exits in a man of 60, more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows merely by the number of years; we grow old by deserting our ideas. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles thesoul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonders, the unfailing childlike appetite of what's next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from infinite, so long as you are young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with the snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you've grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.

青春

　　青春不是年华，而是心情；青春不是桃面、丹唇、柔膝，而是深沉的意志、雄伟的想象、灼热的情感；青春是性命的深泉在涌流。
　　青春气贯长虹，勇锐盖过怯弱，进取压倒苟安，如此锐气，二十后生有之，六旬男子则更多见。年年有加，并非垂老；幻想丢弃，方堕暮年。
　　岁月悠悠，衰微只及肌肤；热情抛却，颓唐必至灵魂。烦忧、惊恐、损失自负，定使心灵扭曲，意气如灰。
　　无论年届花甲，抑或二八芳龄，心中皆有性命之欢快，奇迹之诱惑，孩童般天真久盛不衰。人人心中皆有一台天线，只要你从天上人间接收美妙、愿望、欢快、勇气和力气的信号，你就青春永驻，风华常存。
　　一旦天线倒塌，锐气被冰雪笼罩，玩世不恭、自暴自弃油然而生，几十年方二十，实已垂老矣；然则只要树起心中的天线，捕捉乐观的信号，你就有望在八十高龄告别尘寰时仍认为年青。