爱华网通常老师都叫同学们准备一个摘抄本,在看书时把一些好的部分摘抄下来,以备写作文的时候用。小编精心收集了2016高中英语美文，供大家欣赏学习!
2016高中英语美文篇1
Hold your head up high 昂起你的头
I was fifteen months old, a happy carefree(无忧无虑的) kid until the day I fell. It was a bad fall. I landed on a glass rabbit which cut my eye badly enough to blind it. Trying to save the eye, the doctors stitched(缝纫，装订) the eyeball together where it was cut, leaving a big ugly scar in the middle of my eye. The attempt failed, but my mama, in all of her wisdom, found a doctor who knew that if the eye were removed entirely, my face would grow up badly distorted(扭曲的) , so my scarred, sightless, cloudy and gray eye lived on with me. And as I grew, this sightless eye in so many ways controlled me.
I walked with my face looking at the floor so people would not see the ugly me. Sometimes people, even strangers, asked me embarrassing questions or made hurtful remarks. When the kids played games, I was always the "monster." I grew up imagining that everyone looked at me with disdain(蔑视) , as if my appearance were my fault. I always felt like I was a freak.
Yet Mama would say to me, at every turn, "Hold your head up high and face the world." It became a litany(冗长而枯燥的陈述) that I relied on. She had started when I was young. She would hold me in her arms and stroke my hair and say, "If you hold your head up high, it will be okay, and people will see your beautiful soul." She continued this message whenever I wanted to hide.
Those words have meant different things to me over the years. As a little child, I thought Mama meant, "Be careful or you will fall down or bump into something because you are not looking." As an adolescent, even though I tended to look down to hide my shame, I found that sometimes when I held my head up high and let people know me, they liked me. My mama's words helped me begin to realize that by letting people look at my face, I let them recognize the intelligence and beauty behind both eyes even if they couldn't see it on the surface.
In high school I was successful both academically and socially. I was even elected class president, but on the inside I still felt like a freak. All I really wanted was to look like everyone else. When things got really bad, I would cry to my mama and she would look at me with loving eyes and say, "Hold your head up high and face the world. Let them see the beauty that is inside."
When I met the man who became my partner for life, we looked each other straight in the eye, and he told me I was beautiful inside and out(从里到外地，彻底地) . He meant it. My mama's love and encouragement were the spark that gave me the confidence to overcome my own doubt. I had faced adversity(逆境，不幸) , encountered my problems head on, and learned not only to appreciate myself but to have deep compassion for others.
"Hold your head up high," has been heard many times in my home. Each of my children has felt its invitation. The gift my mama gave me lives on in another generation.
2016高中英语美文篇2
Never sell your soul 不要出卖自己的灵魂
My fellow job seekers: I am honored to be among the first to congratulate you on completing your years at North Carolina A&T. But all of you should know: as Mother's Day gifts go, this one is going to be tough to beat in the years ahead.
The purpose of a commencement(毕业典礼，开始) speaker is to dispense(分配，免除) wisdom. But the older I get, the more I realize that the most important wisdom I've learned in life has come from my mother and my father. Before we go any further, let's hear it one more time for your mothers and mother figures, fathers and father figures, family, and friends in the audience today.
When I first received the invitation to speak here, I was the CEO of an $80 billion Fortune 11 company with 145,000 employees in 178 countries around the world. I held that job for nearly six years. It was also a company that hired its fair share of graduates from North Carolina A&T. You could always tell who they were. For some reason, they were the ones that had stickers(贴纸，尖刀) on their desks that read, "Beat the Eagles."
But as you may have heard, I don't have that job anymore. After the news of my departure broke, I called the school, and asked: do you still want me to come and be your commencement speaker?
Chancellor Renick put my fears to rest. He said, "Carly, if anything, you probably have more in common with these students now than you did before." And he's right. After all, I've been working on my resume. I've been lining up my references. I bought a new interview suit. If there are any recruiters(招聘人员，征兵人员) here, I'll be free around 11.
I want to thank you for having me anyway. This is the first public appearance I've made since I left HP. I wanted very much to be here because this school has always been set apart by something that I've believed very deeply; something that takes me back to the earliest memories I have in life.
One day at church, my mother gave me a small coaster(杯托，小托盘) with a saying on it. During my entire childhood, I kept this saying in front of me on a small desk in my room. In fact, I can still show you that coaster today. It says: "What you are is God's gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God."
Those words have had a huge impact on me to this day. What this school and I believe in very deeply is that when we think about our lives, we shouldn't be limited by other people's stereotypes or bigotry. Instead, we should be motivated by our own sense of possibility. We should be motivated by our own sense of accomplishment. We should be motivated by what we believe we can become. Jesse Jackson has taught us; Ronald McNair taught us; the Greensboro Four taught us; that the people who focus on possibilities achieve much more in life than people who focus on limitations.
The question for all of you today is: how will you define what you make of yourself?
To me, what you make of yourself is actually two questions. There's the "you" that people see on the outside. And that's how most people will judge you, because it's all they can see what you become in life, whether you were made President of this, or CEO of that, the visible you.
But then, there's the invisible you, the "you" on the inside. That's the person that only you and God can see. For 25 years, when people have asked me for career advice, what I always tell them is don't give up what you have inside. Never sell your soul. Because no one can ever pay you back.
What I mean by not selling your soul is don't be someone you're not, don't be less than you are, don't give up what you believe, because whatever the consequences that may seem scary or bad -- whatever the consequences of staying true to yourself are -- they are much better than the consequences of selling your soul.
You have been tested mightily in your life to get to this moment. And all of you know much better than I do: from the moment you leave this campus, you will be tested. You will be tested because you won't fit some people's pre-conceived notions or stereotypes of what you're supposed to be, of who you're supposed to be. People will have stereotypes of what you can or can't do, of what you will or won't do, of what you should or shouldn't do. But they only have power over you if you let them have power over you. They can only have control if you let them have control, if you give up what's inside.
I speak from experience. I've been there. I've been there, in admittedly(公认地，明白地) vastly different ways -- and in many ways, in the fears in my heart, exactly the same places. The truth is I've struggled to have that sense of control since the day I left college.
I was afraid the day I graduated from college. I was afraid of what people would think. Afraid I couldn't measure up(合格，符合标准) . I was afraid of making the wrong choices. I was afraid of disappointing the people who had worked so hard to send me to college.
2016高中英语美文篇3
Salty Coffee 咸咖啡
He met her at a party. She was so outstanding, many guys chasing after her, while he was so normal, nobody paid attention to him.
At the end of the party, he invited her to have coffee with him, she was surprised but due to being polite, she promised. They sat in a nice coffee shop, he was too nervous to say anything, she felt uncomfortable, and she thought to herself, "Please, let me go home..."
Suddenly he asked the waiter, "Would you please give me some salt? I'd like to put it in my coffee." Everybody stared at(凝视，盯住) him, so strange! His face turned red but still, he put the salt in his coffee and drank it. She asked him curiously, "Why you have this hobby?" He replied, "When I was a little boy, I lived near the sea, I liked playing in the sea, I could feel the taste of the sea, just like the taste of the salty coffee. Now every time I have the salty coffee, I always think of my childhood, think of my hometown, I miss my hometown so much, I miss my parents who are still living there." While saying that tears filled his eyes. She was deeply touched. That's his true feeling, from the bottom of his heart. A man who can tell out his homesickness(乡愁) , he must be a man who loves home, cares about home, has responsibility of home... Then she also started to speak, spoke about her faraway hometown, her childhood, her family.
That was a really nice talk, also a beautiful beginning of their story. They continued to date. She found that actually he was a man who meets all her demands; he had tolerance(宽容，公差) , was kind hearted, warm, careful. He was such a good person but she almost missed him! Thanks to his salty coffee! Then the story was just like every beautiful love story, the princess married to the prince, and then they were living the happy life... And, every time she made coffee for him, she put some salt in the coffee, as she knew that's the way he liked it.
After 40 years, he passed away, left her a letter which said, "My dearest, please forgive me, forgive my whole life's lie. This was the only lie I said to you -- the salty coffee. Remember the first time we dated? I was so nervous at that time, actually I wanted some sugar, but I said salt. It was hard for me to change so I just went ahead. I never thought that could be the start of our communication! I tried to tell you the truth many times in my life, but I was too afraid to do that, as I have promised not to lie to you for anything... Now I'm dying, I'm afraid of nothing so I tell you the truth, I don't like the salty coffee, what a strange bad taste... But I have had the salty coffee for my whole life! Since I knew you, I never feel sorry for anything I do for you. Having you with me is my biggest happiness for my whole life. If I can live for the second time, still want to know you and have you for my whole life, even though I have to drink the salty coffee again."
Her tears made the letter totally wet. Someday, someone asked her, "What's the taste of salty coffee?" She replied, "It's sweet."
