love your life

love your life

                        ----henry david thoreau

However mean your life is, meet it and live it;

don't shun¹ it and call it hard names.

It is not so bad as you are.

It looks poorest when your 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 abode²;

The snow melts before its door as early in the spring.

 

I don't see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly³ there,

and have as cherring 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 misgiving⁴.

 

Most thik they are above being supported by the town;

But it often happens that

they are not above supporting themselves bydishonest means

Which should be more disreputable.

 

Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage⁵.

Don't 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

 

热爱生活

不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

也许因为他们很伟大，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

1 shun   

vt.避开，回避，避免

参考例句：

• Materialists face truth,whereas idealists shun it.唯物主义者面向真理，唯心主义者则逃避真理。
• This extremist organization has shunned conventional politics.这个极端主义组织有意避开了传统政治。

2 abode   

n.住处，住所

参考例句：

• It was ten months before my father discovered his abode.父亲花了十个月的功夫，才好不容易打听到他的住处。
• Welcome to our humble abode!欢迎光临寒舍！

3 contentedly   

adv.心满意足地

参考例句：

• My father sat puffing contentedly on his pipe.父亲坐着心满意足地抽着烟斗。
• "This is brother John's writing,"said Sally,contentedly,as she opened the letter.

4 misgiving   

n.疑虑，担忧，害怕

参考例句：

• She had some misgivings about what she was about to do.她对自己即将要做的事情存有一些顾虑。
• The first words of the text filled us with misgiving.正文开头的文字让我们颇为担心。

5 sage   

n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的

参考例句：

• I was grateful for the old man's sage advice.我很感激那位老人贤明的忠告。
• The sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.这位哲人是百代之师。