300字英語美文摘抄（一）
Youth
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, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.
This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody 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 spirit back to dust.
Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being』s heart the lure of wonders, the unfailing appetite for 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, courage and power from man and from the infinite, so long as you are young.
When your aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with 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』s hope you may die young at 80.
青春
青春不是年華，而是心境；青春不是桃面、丹唇、柔膝，而是深沉的意志，恢宏的想像，炙熱的戀情；青春是生命的深泉在涌流。
青春氣貫長虹，勇銳蓋過怯弱，進取壓倒苟安。如此銳氣，二十後生而有之，六旬男子則更多見。年歲有加，並非垂老，理想丟棄，方墮暮年。
歲月悠悠，衰微只及肌膚；熱忱拋卻，頹廢必致靈魂。憂煩，惶恐，喪失自信，定使心靈扭曲，意氣如灰。
無論年屆花甲，擬或二八芳齡，心中皆有生命之歡樂，奇蹟之誘惑，孩童般天真久盛不衰。人人心中皆有一台天線，只要你從天上人間接受美好、希望、歡樂、勇氣和力量的信號，你就青春永駐，風華常存。 、
一旦天線下降，銳氣便被冰雪覆蓋，玩世不恭、自暴自棄油然而生，即使年方二十，實已垂垂老矣；然則只要樹起天線，捕捉樂觀信號，你就有望在八十高齡告別塵寰時仍覺年輕。
300字英語美文摘抄（二）
If I Rest, I Rust
The significant inscription found on an old key---「If I rest, I rust」---would be an excellent motto for those who are afflicted with the slightest bit of idleness.
Even the most industrious person might adopt it with advantage to serve as a reminder that, if one allows his faculties to rest, like the iron in the unused key, they will soon show signs of rust and, ultimately, cannot do the work required of them.
Those who would attain the heights reached and kept by great men must keep their faculties polished by constant use, so that they may unlock the doors of knowledge, the gate that guard the entrances to the professions, to science, art, literature, agriculture---every department of human endeavor.
Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasury of achievement. If Hugh Miller, after toiling all day in a quarry, had devoted his evenings to rest and recreation, he would never have become a famous geologist.
The celebrated mathematician, Edmund Stone, would never have published a mathematical dictionary, never have found the key to science of mathematics, if he had given his spare moments to idleness, had the little Scotch lad, Ferguson, allowed the busy brain to go to sleep while he tended sheep on the hillside instead of calculating the position of the stars by a string of beads, he would never have become a famous astronomer.
Labor vanquishes all---not inconstant, spasmodic, or ill-directed labor; but faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose.
Just as truly as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry the price of noble and enduring success.
如果我休息，我就會生鏽
在一把舊鑰匙上發現了一則意義深遠的銘文——如果我休息，我就會生鏽。對於那些懶散而煩惱的人來說，這將是至理名言。甚至最為勤勉的人也以此作為警示：如果一個人有才能而不用，就像廢棄鑰匙上的鐵一樣，這些才能就會很快生鏽，並最終無法完成安排給自己的工作。
有些人想取得偉人所獲得並保持的成就，他們就必須不斷運用自身才能，以便開啟知識的大門，即那些通往人類努力探求的各個領域的大門，這些領域包括各種職業：科學，藝術，文學，農業等。
勤奮使開啟成功寶庫的鑰匙保持光亮。如果休？米勒在採石場勞作一天後，晚上的時光用來休息消遣的話，他就不會成為名垂青史的地質學家。著名數學家愛德蒙？斯通如果閒暇時無所事事，就不會出版數學詞典，也不會發現開啟數學之門的鑰匙。如果蘇格蘭青年弗格森在山坡上放羊時，讓他那思維活躍的大腦處於休息狀態，而不是藉助一串珠子計算星星的位置，他就不會成為著名的天文學家。
勞動征服一切。這裡所指的勞動不是斷斷續續的，間歇性的或方向偏差的勞動，而是堅定的，不懈的，方向正確的每日勞動。正如要想擁有自由就要時刻保持警惕一樣，要想取得偉大的，持久的成功，就必須堅持不懈地努力。
300字英語美文摘抄（三）
What I Have Lived For
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 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 wished 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.
我為何而生
我的一生被三種簡單卻又無比強烈的激情所控制：對愛的渴望，對知識的探索和對人類苦難難以抑制的嶼。這些激情像狂風，把我恣情吹向四方，掠過苦痛的大海，迫使我瀕臨絕望的邊緣。
我尋求愛，首先因為它使我心為之著迷，()這種難以名狀的美妙迷醉使我願意用所有的餘生去換取哪怕幾個小時這樣的幸福。我尋求愛，還因為它能緩解我心理上的孤獨中，我感覺心靈的戰慄，仿如站在世界的邊緣而面前是冰冷，無底的死亡深淵。我尋求愛，因為在我所目睹的結合中，我仿佛看到了聖賢與詩人們所嚮往的天堂之景。這就是我所尋找的，雖然對人的一生而言似乎有些遙不可及，但至少是我用盡一生所領悟到的。
我用同樣的激情去尋求知識。我希望能理解人類的心靈，希望能夠知道群星閃爍的緣由。我試圖領悟畢達哥拉斯所景仰的「數即萬物」的思想。我已經悟出了其中的一點點道理，儘管並不是很多。
愛和知識，用它們的力量把人引向天堂。但是同情卻總把人又拽回到塵世中來。痛苦的呼喊聲迴蕩在我的內心。飢餓的孩子，受壓迫的難民，貧窮和痛苦的世界，都是對人類所憧憬的美好生活的無情嘲弄。我渴望能夠減少邪惡，但是我無能為力，我也難逃其折磨。
這就是我的一生。我已經找到它的價值。而且如果有機會，我很願意能再活它一次。