However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.

無論你的生活如何卑微，要正視它，生活下去；不要躲避它，也不要惡語相加。

It is not so bad as you are.

你的生活不像你本人那么糟糕。

It looks poorest when you are richest.

The fault-finder will find faults in paradise.

Love your life, poor as it is.

你最富有的時候，你的生活看上去倒是最貧窮的。

吹毛求疵的人即便在天堂也能挑出瑕疵。

要熱愛你的生活，盡管它可能是一貧如洗。

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.

即使身處貧民院，你也可能享受一段愉快、興奮、輝煌的時光。

西斜的落日映照在貧民院窗戶上的余暉，與照射在富貴人家的豪宅上一樣光芒萬丈；門前的積雪一樣在早春消融。

我只看到，一個氣定神閑的人在那里可以過著自得其樂的生活，抱著振奮樂觀的思想，如同居住在皇宮里一般。

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.

依我之見，城鎮(zhèn)的貧民倒是往往過著最獨(dú)立的生活。

也許他們十分偉大，對任何事情皆可坦然受之。

大多數(shù)人認(rèn)為他們不屑于接受城鎮(zhèn)的施救；但是實(shí)際上他們經(jīng)常使用不誠實(shí)的手段來維持自己的生計，

這是更為不體面的。

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.

如同栽培花園中芬芳的花草一般在貧困中耕耘吧。

犯不著千辛萬苦以求獲得新東西，無論是衣服還是朋友。

把舊的翻新再回歸其中。

Things do not change; we change.

Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

萬事萬物沒有變，是我們在變。

衣履可鬻，所思必存。

作者簡介：

亨利·戴維·梭羅（Henry David Thoreau，1817-1862），美國作家、哲學(xué)家。