【推荐1】I remember clearly the last time I cried. I was twelve years old, in the seventh grade, and I had tried out for the junior high school basketball team. I walked into the gym. There was a piece of paper on the wall.

It was a cut list. The boys whose names were on the list were welcome to keep on practicing. The boys whose names were not on the list had been cut. Their presence was no longer desired.

I had not known the cut was coming that day. I stood and stared at the list. The list had not been made with a great deal of consideration. The names of the best players were at the top, and the other members of the team were listed in what appeared to be a descending (下降的) order of basketball skills. I kept looking at the bottom of the list, hoping that my name would appear if I looked hard enough.

I held myself together as I walked out, bat when I got home I began to cry. For the first time in my life, I had been told officially that I wasn't good enough. Sports meant everything to boys of that age. If you were on the team, it put you in the desirable group. If you were not, you might as well not be alive.

All these years later, I remember it as if 1 were still standing right there in the gym. I don't know how the mind works in matters like this. I don't know what went on in my head following that day of cut. But I know that my determination has been so strong ever since then. I have known that for all my life since that day. I have done more work than I had to be doing and pat in more hours than I had to be spending, I don't know if all of that came from a determination never to allow myself to be cut again—never to allow someone to tell me that I'm not good enough again—but I know it is there. And clearly it's there in a lot of other successful men too.

【推荐3】Last summer, Katie Steller pulled off the freeway on her way to work in Minneapolis. She stopped at a traffic light, where a man was sitting with a sign asking for help. She rolled down her window.

“Hey!” she shouted. “I’m driving around giving free haircuts. If I go grab my chair, do you want one right now?”

The man looked to be in his 60s. He was balding, and missing a few teeth. As Steller liked to tell the story, he laughed, then paused. “Actually,” he said, “I have a funeral to go to this week. I was really hoping to get a haircut.”

Steller pulled out a red chair from her car and helped the man cut his hair immediately. After the work was finished, Edward looked in a mirror. “I look good!” he said.

Until last year, Steller had given such haircuts to people living on the margins(边缘) around the city. She was keenly aware of the power of her cleanup job.

“It’s more than a haircut,” she said. “I want it to be a gateway, to show value and respect, but also to get to know people. I want to build relationships.”

Steller knew that a haircut could change a life. One changed hers: As a teen, she suffered from a severe disease, her hair thinned drastically. Seeing this, her mother arranged for Steller’s first professional haircut.

“To sit down and have somebody look at me and talk to me like a person and not just an illness, it helped me feel cared about and less alone,” she said.

After that, Steller knew she wanted to have her own salon so she could help people feel the way she’d felt that day. Not long after finishing cosmetology school in 2009, she began what she now calls her Red Chair Project, reaching out to people on the streets. Her aim was that by doing some kind acts, others would be inspired to spread their own.

“Part of what broke my heart was just how lonely people looked,” she said. “I thought maybe I’d go around and ask if people want free haircuts. I can’t fix their problems, but maybe I can help them feel less alone for a moment.”

It all began with a belief in simple acts of kindness, such as a free haircut. “The way you show up in the world matters,” said Steller. “You have no idea what people are going to do with the kindness that you give them.”

【推荐1】“I will never marry，” the future Elizabeth I declared at the age of eight，and，to the terror of her people，the Great Queen kept her word.

There was no shortage of suitors（求婚者）for the Queen，both English courtiers（朝臣）and foreign princes，and it was confidently expected for the best part of 30 years that Elizabeth would eventually marry one of them. Indeed，although she insisted that she preferred the single state，she kept these suitors in a state of permanent expectation. This was a deliberate policy on the Queen's part，since by keeping foreign princes in hope，sometimes for a decade，she kept them friendly when they might otherwise have made war on her kingdom.

There were，indeed，good political reasons for her avoiding marriage. The disastrous union of her sister Mary I to Philip Ⅱ of Spain had had an unwelcome foreign influence upon English politics. The English were generally prejudiced against the Queen taking a foreign husband，particularly a Catholic one. Yet if she married an English，jealousy might lead to the separation of the court.

There were other deeper reasons for Elizabeth’s unwillingness to marry，chief of which，I believe，was her fear of losing her autonomy as Queen. In the 16th century，a queen was regarded as holding supreme dominion（统治）over the state，while a husband was thought to hold supreme dominion over his wife. Elizabeth knew that marriage and motherhood would bring some harm to her power. She once pointed out that marriage seemed too uncertain a state for her. She had seen several unions in her immediate family break down，including that of her own parents. Elizabeth's father，Henry Ⅷ，had had her mother，Anne Boleyn，killed；her stepmother Catherine Howard later suffered the same fate. When Elizabeth was 14 she was all but attracted by Admiral Thomas Seymour，who also went to the prison within a year. Witnessing these terrible events at an early age，it has been argued，may have put Elizabeth off marriage.

Elizabeth had to decide her priorities. Marriage or being single？Elizabeth was far too intelligent. The choice she made was courageous and revolutionary，and，in the long run，the right one for England.

【推荐2】Nelson Mandela is respected and admired around the world. To South Africa he is a superstar. He is a hero who shocked the world by fighting for peace between races, even though he spent 27 years in the prison of the South Africa's white, racist regime(政权)．

Mandela, who won the nation's first all­race elections after the fall of apartheid (种族隔离) in 1994, retired in 1999. But even now, he is as popular as ever.

His popularity has inspired an entire national industry. His portrait (肖像) has appeared at many places, including on some goods. His face has appeared on a South African coin, a district of a city was named in his honor and some business leaders hope to build a giant statue that looks like him—the Statue of Freedom in celebration of his birthday. It would stand taller than New York's Statue of Liberty．

His popularity is similar to that of John F. Kennedy in the US or Winston Churchill in Britain, but few politicians today have achieved his level of admiration, said Tom Lodge, head of the Political Science Department of the University of the Witwatersrand.

“Sometimes it isn't completely appreciated what a skilled performer Mandela has been throughout his political career. He's a very, very clever man.”

However, he is far from perfect.

Most articles about his birthday, which appeared in every major South African newspaper on the day, briefly mentioned that Mandela did have shortcomings.

Then they returned to their following praises.

“Through the ages, the human race has had its icons(偶像)—men and women who rose above ordinary people to inspire their generations,” The Mail and Guardian Weekly said，“In our generation, the god brought us Nelson Mandela.”