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.

    論你的生活如何卑賤，你要面對它生活，不要躲避它，更別用惡言咒罵它。它不像你那樣壞。你最富有的時候，倒是看似最窮。愛找缺點的人就是到天堂里也能找到缺點。你要愛你的生活，盡管它貧窮。甚至在一個濟貧院里，你也還有愉快、高興、光榮的時候。夕陽反射在濟貧院的窗上，像身在富戶人家窗上一樣光亮；在那門前，積雪同在早春融化。我只看到，一個從容的人，在哪里也像在皇宮中一樣，生活得心滿意足而富有愉快的思想。城鎮中的窮人，我看，倒往往是過著最獨立不羈的生活。也許因為他們很大，所以受之無愧。大多數人以為他們是超然的，不靠城鎮來支援他們；可是事實上他們是往往利用了不正當的手段來對付生活，他們是毫不超脫的，毋寧是不體面的。視貧窮如園中之花而像圣人一樣耕植它吧！不要找新的花樣，無論是新的朋友或新的衣服，來麻煩你自己。找舊的，回到那里去。萬物不變，是我們在變。你的衣服可以賣掉，但要保留你的思想。