亨利·D. 梭罗(Henry D. Thoreau)
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 even 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. 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.
- shun [ʃʌn] v. 扫一眼，避免
- poor-house [ˈpɔːhaʊs] n. 济贫院
- alms-house [ˈɑːmzhaʊs] n. 济贫院
- abode [əˈbəʊd] n. 住所，家
- cultivate [ˈkʌltɪveɪt] v. 培养
不管你的生活有多么平庸，也要面对它，过好它，一不诅咒，二不逃避。现在的你还不算那么糟糕。你最富有的时候，看起来最贫穷。爱挑剔的人，天堂里也找得出毛病。生活虽寒酸，还是爱它，这么一来，陋室之内也有快乐、激动和兴高采烈的时刻光临。救济院的窗口反射出的夕阳余晖，跟富人豪宅窗子反射出来的，同样地灿烂；春天里，门前的雪一样地早早融化。我深知，一个心静如水的人，可以心满意足地生活在这里，如同生活在宫殿里一样，同样怡然快乐。市井平民常常过着比谁都独立自主的生活，也许他们只是心性单纯朴实，知足自安，毫无忧虑之感。要像培育鼠尾草那样的园圃植物一般，培养安贫之志。不要过于操劳去弄新东西，无论是衣服还是朋友。回到老朋友身边，仍旧穿上旧衣服。东西会变，我们不变。衣服可以卖，我们的思想要保留。
亨利·D. 梭罗(1817—1862)，美国散文作家、诗人，出生于马萨诸塞州，是超验主义代表人物。《康科德与梅里马克河上一周游记》(A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers ，1849)是他的第一部重要著作。他的代表作是长篇散文《瓦尔登湖》(Walden ,1854)。他的散文简洁精练，感染力强。《瓦尔登湖》中对自然界的描写显示出他的深刻观察、博学以及对生活的热爱。