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 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 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. 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 a 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.
不管你的生活怎麼惡劣，都要迎頭應對，好好地活，不要躲避，也不要咒罵。它並不像你自己那麼差勁。當你最富有的時候，它看上去最貧窮。挑毛病的人即使在天堂也能挑出毛病。愛你的生活，即使它很窮。就算在救濟院，你也有可能有快樂、激動、光彩的時刻。落日從救濟院的窗戶上反射出來的`光輝，同富人家窗戶上的一樣明亮；門前的積雪同樣在早春融化。雖然我未親眼所見，但是一個有平常心的人可以生活得心滿意足，快樂幸福，猶如生活在宮殿。城裡的窮人在我看來卻時常過著最灑脫的生活。也許他們偉大到了可以接受而無需濫施的境界。許多人覺得自己自足自立，不靠誰養活；但實情是他們靠著不誠實來養活自己，這才是更羞恥的事。猶如聖人，猶如花園裡的一株草一樣去改造貧窮吧。不要自尋煩惱地添置新東西，不管是新衣服還是新朋友。去翻檢舊物吧。轉向老朋友。東西不會變化，我們會。賣掉衣服，保留思想。
