However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The faultfinder will find faults in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. 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. 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 to live the most independent lives of any. May be 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. 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 the old, return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

    论你的生活如何卑贱，你要面对它生活，不要躲避它，更别用恶言咒骂它。它不像你那样坏。你最富有的时候，倒是看似最穷。爱找缺点的人就是到天堂里也能找到缺点。你要爱你的生活，尽管它贫穷。甚至在一个济贫院里，你也还有愉快、高兴、光荣的时候。夕阳反射在济贫院的窗上，像身在富户人家窗上一样光亮；在那门前，积雪同在早春融化。我只看到，一个从容的人，在哪里也像在皇宫中一样，生活得心满意足而富有愉快的思想。城镇中的穷人，我看，倒往往是过着最独立不羁的生活。也许因为他们很大，所以受之无愧。大多数人以为他们是超然的，不靠城镇来支援他们；可是事实上他们是往往利用了不正当的手段来对付生活，他们是毫不超脱的，毋宁是不体面的。视贫穷如园中之花而像圣人一样耕植它吧！不要找新的花样，无论是新的朋友或新的衣服，来麻烦你自己。找旧的，回到那里去。万物不变，是我们在变。你的衣服可以卖掉，但要保留你的思想。