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 fault-finder will find faults in 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 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. 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, 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.

　　但是意思是你的生活,满足生活它;不要躲避它,更别用恶言咒骂它。它不像你那么坏。你最富有的时候,看起来却最贫穷。爱找缺点的人就是到天堂的能找到缺点。你要爱你的生活,尽管它贫穷。你也许有一些愉快、高兴、光荣的时间,即使在一个贫民收容所。夕阳反射在济贫院的养老院明亮如从富人的住处;雪融化在那门前早在春天。我只看到,一个从容的可能生活得心满意足,和像在皇宫中一样。镇上的穷人似乎我往往过着最独立的生活。也许他们很伟大,所以受之无愧。上面大多数认为他们是被支持的小镇,但它经常发生,他们不是用不诚实的手段来支持自己,而应该更声名狼藉。视贫穷如园中之花,像圣人一样耕植它吧!不要麻烦自己获得新的东西,无论是衣服还是朋友。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。