“The first and best of victories for a man is to conquerhimself; to be conquered by himself is, of all things, the most shameful,” saysPlato. Self-control is at the root of all the advantages. Let a man give in tohis impulses (冲动) andfeelings, and from that moment he gives up his moral freedom.

A single angry word has lost many friends. When Socrates foundin himself any temper or anger, he would check it by speaking low in order tocontrol himself. If you are conscious of being angry, keep your mouth shut sothat you can hold back rising anger. Many a person has dropped dead in greatanger. Fits of anger bring fits of disease. “Whoever the gods would destroy,they first make them mad.” “Keep cool,” says Webster, “anger is notargument.” “Be calm in arguing,” says George Herbert, “for fierceness (狂怒) makes error a fault.”

To be angry with a weak man is to prove that you are not strongyourself. “Anger,” says Pythagoras, “begins with foolishness and ends withregret.” You must measure the strength of a man by the power of the feelings heconquers, not by the power of those which conquer him.

Self-control is man's last and greatest victory.

If a man lacks self-control he seems to lack everything. Withoutit he can have no patience, no power to govern himself; he can have noself-confidence, for he will always be controlled by his strongest feeling. Ifhe lacks self-control, the very backbone and nerve of character are lackingtoo.

    It's carnival season in Europe, a crazy time for parades, mask, music and dance. No one is sure where the tradition exactly comes from. But while its origin remains a mystery, this does not keep people from joining it.

    The Carnival of Binche, the most famous one that is staged in Belgium, has been announced as a masterpiece (杰作) of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. The event usually takes place during a Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, with performers known as "Gilles" dressed in clown-like costumes, dancing and marching along the streets. During parade, the Gilles throw oranges to the crowd as an act of well-washing and it is considered rude to throw them back.

    Venice is said to be the birthplace of carnivals. In the city, the annual carnival starts 58 days before Easter. It features various brightly-colored and well-made masks. Every year, thousands of visitors go to the city to be part of the festive event.

    The Germans, always considered serious-minded, also have their carnivals. The Cologne Carnival is one of the largest, with Rose Monday as the best part. On Rose Monday Parade, lots of gifts are prepared for the people who join it. For this year, 300 tons of candies and more than 300,000 souvenirs were thrown out of the various nicely-decorated floats (花车) to the crowd.

    The Nice Carnival in the southern French city of Nice lasts two or three weeks from February to march every year. It features floats, music, dance, performances and entertainment activities. The parade of lights and the final day carnival parade are the most exciting parts of the entire event. Compared to the Rio Carnival in Brazil and the Winter Carnival in Quebec, Canada, the Nice Carnival has a special artistic touch, and it is one of the three major carnivals around the world.

    Carnivals were first organized in the Middle Ages. They were supposed to be a time of eating and drinking before the Easter fast (斋戒). Nowadays, they have turned into winter tourism attractions of many European cities.

    The smallest kids on Earth are much smaller than you or your baby brother or sister. They're even smaller than the hairs on your head. We call them “NanoPutians”(纳米小人). Also known as NanoKids, the NanoPutians aren't real people. They are actually tiny molecules (分子) made to look a little bit like people.

    James Tour invented the NanoPutians as a way to teach kids about nanoscience, which refers to the study of things that are smaller than about 100 or 200 nanometers. “The exact size is less important than the possible applications of working with such tiny things,” Tour says, “Nanoscience is the study and development of the small so that it will affect the large.”

One of the goals of the research is to control individual atoms. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and other types of atoms are the building blocks of the universe. They make up planets, rocks, people, trees, CDs — all the stuff out there. “Most things that people build come together in a top-down way”, Tour says. If you want to make a table, for instance, you cut down a big tree, make wooden boards, and hammer them together. Nature, on the other hand, builds things from the bottom up. When atoms join together they make molecules. Each molecule has a certain shape, and a molecule's structure determines what it can do. Molecules can make them come together to make a cell — or a tree.

    Tour and his co-workers turned these molecular structures into cartoon figures and made an animated(动画的) science video about the little people, set it to music and started showing it to kids in school while talking about how exciting research on small things can be.

    “Learning about the NanoKids has opened up a world of possibility for real kids who ordinarily would rather not study biology, chemistry or physics.” Tour says. When you look closely enough, the really small can be really cool.

A storm hit Houston, Texas, on Tuesday. It brought heavy rains and rising flood-waters. By Tuesday night, some parts of the city had received 10 inches of rain. Police and firefighters helped people move to safe places. They also saved people from cars and buses that were stuck on roads.

Certain areas around Houston were hit really hard. In just four hours, more than seven inches of rain fell in Sugar Land in the southwest of Houston. Cars could not pass through any of the areas main roadways. On Twitter, Sugar Land city officials asked people to get to high ground.

Tuesday's rain hit parts of Texas that Hurricane Harvey had already damaged almost two years ago. Hurricane Harvey in August, 2017 was the second most costly hurricane in US history. It caused $125 billion worth of damage in Texas. In the Houston area, 36 people died and about 150, 000 homes were flooded.

A spokesman for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management spoke with the Houston Chronicle. The spokesman said that this week's rain is "not in any way a Harvey-level event."

But the worst may not be over yet. People will have a break from the heavy rain on Wednesday. According to the National Weather Service, the Texas Gulf Coast will continue to experience heavy rain later in the week. "Today should be our quietest over the next few days for rainfall," said Don Oettinger, a National Weather Service meteorologist (气象学家).

Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peia warned, "As there is too much water on the ground, these are perfect conditions for flash floods, so we hope people are careful of what they're doing and encourage them to stay home. There's no sense in putting yourself, firefighters or anybody in danger needlessly."

According to one legend, dumplings first appeared during the Han Dynasty. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} （rough） 1800 years ago, the story goes, a physician named Zhang Zhongjing returned to his hometown during a cold winter. He found his fellow villagers with frostbitten {#blank#}2{#/blank#} （ear） and created a new dish to help them warm up. Mutton, herbs, and spices were {#blank#}3{#/blank#} he chose as the ingredients. The doctor {#blank#}4{#/blank#} （wrap）them in pieces of dough and folded the pieces to resemble tiny ears. That particular tale is {#blank#}5{#/blank#} （possible）to confirm, but the long history of dumplings in China is undeniable. Typically filled {#blank#}6{#/blank#} meat or vegetables, the simple bites are distinguished by their pleated（起褶皱的）, wheat dough wrappers. They're often served for the Chinese New Year, though not because they look like crescent moons（新月）. Eating them is believed {#blank#}7{#/blank#} （bring） prosperity in the new year. Traditionally, if you want to wish someone good fortune in China, you feed them dumplings with a coin {#blank#}8{#/blank#} （hide） inside. In addition to being one of the most delicious foods ever created, soup dumplings rank among {#blank#}9{#/blank#} most dangerous. Hot soup is one of the {#blank#}10{#/blank#} （lead） causes of burns. When you're too nervous to eat it whole, tear into the dumpling while it's on your spoon and drink the soup one cautious sip at a time. 

As online learning becomes more common and a mass of resources are changed to digital form, some people have suggested that public libraries should be shut down and everyone should be given an iPad with an e-reader subscription (订阅). They believe that it will save local cities and towns money, provide more materials and encourage more people to read.

 However, it would be a serious mistake to replace libraries with tablets (平板电脑). First, digital books and resources are related to less learning and more problems than print resources. A study found that people read 20-30% slower on tablets, keep 20% less information, and understand 10% less of what they read. Additionally, staring too long at a screen has been shown to cause more health problems than reading print does. 

Second, it is incredibly narrow-minded to believe that the only service libraries offer is book lending. Libraries have lots of benefits, and many are only available if the library has a physical location. Some of these benefits include acting as a quiet study space, giving people a way to communicate with their neighbors, holding classes on a variety of topics, providing jobs, answering visitor questions, and keeping the community connected. One neighborhood found that, over a third of residents reported feeling more connected to their community after a series of local library instituted community events. Similarly, a survey conducted in 2015 found that nearly two-thirds of American adults feel that closing their local library would have a major effect on their community.

While replacing libraries with tablets may seem like a simple solution, it would encourage people to spend even more time looking at digital screens and end access to many of the benefits of libraries. In many areas, libraries are such an important part of the community network that they could never be replaced by a simple object.