However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it or call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. Ido not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgivings. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn to the old, return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

热爱你的生活

    不管你的生活如何卑贱，你要面对它，度过它；不要躲避它，更别用恶言咒骂它。它不是差得像你那样。你最富的时候，它倒是最穷。爱找缺点的人就是到天堂里也找得到缺点。尽管你生活贫穷，你要爱你的生活。甚至在一所济贫院里，你也许还有愉快、兴奋、光荣的时辰。夕阳从济贫院窗上反射，像从富裕人家窗上反射一样光亮；门前积雪同在早春融化。我只看到，一个安心的人，在那里像在皇宫里一样，生活得心满意足而富有乐观的思想。城镇中的穷人，在我看来，倒是往往是过着最独立不羁的生活。也许因为他们很伟大，所以接受捐助而无顾虑。大多数人认为自己高尚，不要城镇来支援他们；可是事实上他们常常并非高深得不用不正当的手段来养活自己，这样做该是更加不光彩．视贫穷如园中之花草而像圣人一样耕植它吧！不要为了得到新人新物，无论是新朋友还是新衣服，而过多麻烦自己．求助于老的旧的吧，回到那里去．万事不变，是我们在变．你如果卖掉你的衣服，要保留你的思想．