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.

热爱生活

不论你的生活如何卑微，你都得面对与度过；不要逃避，也莫以恶言相加。生活不像你认为的那么坏。当你富甲天下之时，生活却显得贫瘠乏味。即使在天堂，吹毛求疵之人也能挑出缺点。即使生活贫穷，你也该热爱生活，因为就是在贫济院，你也有自己快乐，激动与光荣的岁月。夕阳照在贫济院窗户上的反光与富人宅第上的一样夺目；其门前的积雪同样是在早春融化。我只是看到，一个心绪宁静的人就算居住在贫济院，生活起来也会心满意足，思想愉悦，如同生活在皇宫中一样。在我看来，城镇中的贫民大凡过着最为无拘无束的生活。或许他们只是超乎寻常，不然岂会毫无疑惧地接受这一切。大多数人认为自己超凡脱俗而无须依赖城镇地资助，然而情况往往是，他们谋生靠的是不正当的手段，这更会让他们声名扫地。如圣人一般，视贫穷如园中的花草去慢慢耕耘吧。不要自找麻烦地去追求新花样——衣服也好，朋友也好。翻开故往，回归故往。万物未变，我们在变。你的衣裳可以卖掉，但要保留你的思想。