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. 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.

不管你的生活是如何的，遇到它并生活它，不要回避它，把它称为名字。它不是那么坏，因为你是。当你最富有的时候看起来最贫穷。故障查找器会发现故障的天堂。爱你的生活，贫穷如它。即使是在一个贫穷的房子里，你也可能有一些愉快、激动、光荣的时刻。夕阳反射在救济院的窗上，像从富人的住所一样光亮；在那门前，积雪融化在春天的春天。我看到一个从容的想法在那里，拥有快乐的思想，就像在宫殿里。城镇中的穷人，我经常过的是最独立的生活。可能他们只是伟大的而受之无愧。大多数人以为他们是被城市所支持的；可是事实上他们是不高于支持自己不诚实的手段，这是更为不体面的。培养贫穷如园中之草，如圣人。不要麻烦你自己去买新的东西，无论是衣服还是朋友，把旧的，回到他们。事情不改变，我们改变。卖掉你的衣服，保留你的思想。