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.
yes !you can say that again!作者: captinjack 时间: 2011-8-9 10:39
eh，I was born to be pessimistic作者: 雨落风残 时间: 2011-8-9 11:22
Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage.
我对这句话的翻译有点异议，原文的翻译是：视贫穷如园中之花而像圣人一样耕植它吧！我觉得sage不应该翻译成圣人，因为前面提到，要想园中之花一样，那么这个like这个对应结构中的sage也应该翻译成植物的名称，我觉得还是翻译成鼠尾草比较好。就像斯卡布罗集市歌词里面的：
Are you going to Scarborough Fair
Parsley,sage,rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine作者: 凉茶 时间: 2011-8-25 17:30
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那就译成“如同栽培在花园中芬芳的花草一样，在贫困中耕耘吧！”