Love Your Life
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not as bad as your are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The faultfinder will find faults even in the 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 almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do 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 live the most independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it often happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old, return to them.. Things do not change, then we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
熱愛生活
不論你的生活如何卑微，你都得面對與度過；不要逃避，也莫以惡言相加。生活不像你認為的那么壞。當你富甲天下之時，生活卻顯得貧瘠乏味。即使在天堂，吹毛求疵之人也能挑出缺點。即使生活貧窮，你也該熱愛生活，因為就是在貧濟院，你也有自己快樂，激動與光榮的歲月。夕陽照在貧濟院窗戶上的反光與富人宅第上的一樣奪目；其門前的積雪同樣是在早春融化。我只是看到，一個心緒寧靜的人就算居住在貧濟院，生活起來也會心滿意足，思想愉悅，如同生活在皇宮中一樣。在我看來，城鎮中的貧民大凡過著最為無拘無束的生活。或許他們只是超乎尋常，不然豈會毫無疑懼地接受這一切。大多數人認為自己超凡脫俗而無須依賴城鎮地資助，然而情況往往是，他們謀生靠的是不正當的手段，這更會讓他們聲名掃地。如圣人一般，視貧窮如園中的花草去慢慢耕耘吧。不要自找麻煩地去追求新花樣——衣服也好，朋友也好。翻開故往，回歸故往。萬物未變，我們在變。你的衣裳可以賣掉，但要保留你的思想。