【书】瓦尔登湖
节选自《瓦尔登湖》[美] 亨利·戴维·梭罗 中英对照全译本
经济学
I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. 我亲眼目睹着年轻人和镇里居民同胞们的不幸——他们继承了土地、房屋、谷仓、牛群和农具。这些东西能轻而易举得到，却不能易如反掌地摆脱。
What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines or rather indicates his date. 一个人如何看待自己，决定或者说指示了他的命运。
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. 芸芸众生在绝望之中无声无息地生活着。所谓听天由命，只是惯常的绝望。你从绝望的城市走进绝望的村庄，只得以貂皮和麝鼠皮大衣的华丽来安慰自我。甚至在人类所谓的游戏和消遣底下都深深隐藏着一种一成不变但又不知不觉的绝望。两者并无娱乐可言，因为娱乐只产生于工作之后。然而，智慧的特征之一便是不去做绝望的事。
I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our wealness as to our strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-night incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of that work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! 我认为，我们可以泰然相信的事情比我们实际上相信的要多得多。我们能放弃多少对自己的关怀，便可以真诚给予别人多少关怀。大自然能够容纳我们的长处，也能容纳我们的弱点。有些人无穷无尽无法克制的紧张焦虑，几乎成了一种无法医治的疾病。我们天生是这样的人，喜欢夸耀我们所做的工作有多么重要，却有不少工作还没有做！
Confucius said,"To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge." When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, i foresee that all men at length establish their lives on that basis. 孔夫子有云：“知之为知之，不知为不知，是知也。” 当一个人把他想象的事实提炼为他的信念之时，我预言所有人终将在这样的基础上构筑起他们的人生。
For a long time i was reporter to a journal, of no very wide circulation, whose editor has never yet seen fit to print the bulk of my contributions, and , as is too common with writers, i got only my labor for my pains. However, in this case my pains were their own reward. 在很长一段时间里我是一家报社的记者，它的发行量小，编辑从来没有认为我写的大部分稿件是适合发表的。并且，就像作家们经常遭遇的一样，我的辛劳只换来精疲力尽。不过，就这件事来说，我的努力就是它们自身的报酬。
The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others? 人们赞美的、认为成功的生活，只不过是种种生活中的一种罢了。为什么我们要赞许高抬一种而贬低其他种类的生活呢？
Often if an accident happens to a gentleman's legs, they can be mended; but if a similar accident happens to the legs of his pantaloons, there is no help for it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is respectable. We know but few men, a great many coats and breeches. 常见的是，如果一位绅士腿上有伤，是可以医治的；而如果他的裤子破了，就没有办法了。因为人们关注的，是那些被别人尊重的，而不是真正值得尊重的东西。我们认识的人很少，我们认识的衣服和裤子却很多。
What of architectural beauty i now see, i know has gradually grown from within outward, out of the necessities and character of the indweller, who is the only builder-out of some unconscious truthfulness, and nobleness, without ever a thought for the appearance and whatever additional beauty of this kind is destined to be produced will be preceded by a like unconscious beauty of life. 我目前认为的建筑之美是由内而外慢慢生长的，是从居住者的需要和性格中萌发的，居住者是唯一的建筑师--这美源于未曾察觉到的真实和高贵，并不会考虑到外表；如果注定会产生这样的美感，那么他已经事先拥有了这种生命之美，只是没有意识到这一点。
I mean that they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. 我的主张是，他们不能把生活当成游戏，也不能把生活仅仅当成研究对象。社会上的人们付出了很高的代价来供养他们，他们应该热枕地生活，矢志不渝。
One young man of mu acquaintance, who has inherited some acred, told me that he thought he should live as i did, if he had the means. I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for, beside that before he has fairly learned it i may have found out another for myself, i desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but i would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do. It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course. 我认识一个年轻人，他继承了几英亩地，他告诉我，如果有办法，他希望像我一样生活。我却不希望任何人出于任何原因采用我这种生活方式，因为，说不定当他还没有学会我这一种生活方式时，我已经找到了下一种生活方式。我希望世上的人，各自的生活方式越不同越好。但同时我希望每个人都能审慎地找出并坚持合适自己的生活方式，而不是沿用他父亲、母亲或者邻居的生活方式。年轻人可以从事建筑，也可以耕田，也可以航海，只要我们不阻扰他去做他愿意做的事就好了。人是聪慧的，因为人能计算；水手和逃亡的奴隶都知道眼睛盯住北极星，这些足够人们用上一辈子了。我们也许不能在一个预定的时日里到达目的，但我们总可以行走在一条真正的生活的航线上。
Men say, practically, Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought go about doing good. 很实际的说，就是从脚下开始，按照原来的样子去做，不要朝着成为更有价值的人这个方向努力，而是怀着好的心意去做事。
At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house. 当我们的生命到达某个阶段，我们便会习惯将所有的可以安家落户的地方逐一进行考察。
Wherever i sat, there i might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly.What is a house but a sedes, a seat? - better if a country seat. 其实对我来说，任何地方都能够承载生活，任何角落都会因我而自成景致。所谓家宅，不过是一个可以安坐的座位——倘若这座位位于乡村会更有韵味。
Old Cato, whose "De Re Rustica" is my "Culitvator" says, and the only translation i have seen makes sheer nonsense of the passage "When you think of getting a farm turn it thus in your mind, not to buy greedily; nor spare your pains to look at it, and do not think it though to go round it once. The oftener you go there the more it will please you, if it is good." I think i shall not buy greedily, but go round and round it as long as i live, and be buried in it first, that it may please me the more at last. 老卡托的《乡村篇》是我的“启蒙老师”，他曾经这样说过：“如果你打算买下一个田园，你可以在脑海反复想，但绝不能贪婪地买下它，更不要因为怕麻烦而不再去看它，也不要以为绕着它走上一圈就足够了。如果这片田园是真的好，随着去那里的次数增多，你也就会越来越喜欢它。” 我认为，我不会贪婪地把它买下来的，而是选择我能活多久，就去围着它转上多久，首先要沉醉于此，这样才能让我最终更加喜欢它。
I want to the woods because i wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if i could not learn what it had to teach and not when i came to die, discover that i had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did i wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary.
我选择去林中生活是因为我希望生活得更加谨慎，只需要面对生命的最基本的事实，来看看我是否可以学到生命要教给我的东西，这样，到我濒死的时候才不会遗憾自己压根不算是生活过。真正的生活是这般可爱，使我不愿度过不能称作生活的生活，除非使逼不得已，我也不愿意去过那修行或者隐居的生活。
I went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if i could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when i came to die, discover that i had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did i wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to lived deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever." 我要在生活中深深地将生命的精华全部汲取，要过稳稳当当的、斯巴达式的生活，将一切与生活无关的东西剔除。划出一块刈割的区域，仔细为它刈割修剪。让生活压缩至一个极小的角落，并给它最低的条件，倘若它真的是卑微的，那么便去认识它的卑微，并把这些卑微公诸于世；或者，假如它是崇高的，就去亲身体验它的崇高，在我下一次远行时，也好给出一个真实的汇报。因为，在我看来，许多人还是不可思议地不能确定自己的生活是神圣的还是邪恶的，然而又不免有些轻率地判定人生的主要方向就是 “将荣耀归于神，并永远接受神赐予的喜悦”。
Let us spend one day as deluberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry——determined to make a day of it. 让我们像大自然那样随性地度过一天吧，不要被掉到轨道上的一个小小的硬壳果抑或一只蚊虫的翅膀带出轨道。让我们伴着黎明早起，早餐抑或不吃，平静而安详；随他人来人去，任他钟声响起，任那孩童啼哭——下定决心，过好这一天。
Be it life or death, we crave only reality. 无论生或死，我们都只崇尚现实。
Time is but the stream i go-fishing in. 时间只不过是我从旁垂钓的溪流。
To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. 读好书就意味着在真实的精神下读真实的书，这是一种高尚的锻炼，这相比世间的种种训练更要消耗一个人的体力。我们需要像竞技家那样，保持自己的初衷，并为之终身努力。
We have to stand on tip-toe to read and devote our most alert and waleful hours to. 我们必须踮起脚尖，把我们神智最灵敏、头脑最清醒的时刻献与阅读才对。
The book exists for us, perchance, which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. 一本书，如果能阐释生活的奇迹，又能开启新的奇迹，那这本书就实现了它的价值。
Moreover, with wisdom we shall learn liberality. 有了智慧，我们也会变得心胸开阔。
But while we are confined to books, though the most select and classic, and read only particular written languages, which are themselves but dialects and provincial, we are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard. 当我们局限在书里，只阅读某种书面语时，尽管这些是精挑细选的经典，但是如果它本身只是口语和方言类似，我们就有忘掉另一种“语言”的危险，即万事万物不用比喻等修辞，直接表达出来的文字，这种语言是最丰富，也是最标准的。
Every path but your own is the path of the fate. Keep on your own strack, then. 除了走自己的路之外，所有其他的库都是宿命的路。那么，就让我们勇于走自己的路吧。
There is commonly sufficient space about us. Our horizon is never quite at our elbows. 我们周围环绕着充足的空间。我们根本无法触及地平线。
Yet i experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no very back melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still. 但是有些时候我也可以从这些自然事物中找到那种最为甜蜜和温柔，最为单纯和鼓舞人心的伴侣，即使是对最为穷苦或者最为悲伤的人而言，它们也是如此。住在自然当中，并且没有丧失自己的感官的人是不会感到非常悲伤的。
Nothing can rightly comple a simple and brave man to a vulgar sadness. 没有什么可以迫使一个单纯而勇敢的人产生庸俗的伤感之情。
Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me, even in scense which we are accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest was not a person nor a villager, that i thought no place could ever be strange to me again. 每一枝小松针都包含着同情心，不断长大，成为我的朋友。我非常清楚的感受到它们和我有着同样的血统，甚至是在我们通常会成为恐怖和荒凉的景色中，我也能感受到，和我流着最为相近的血液，对我最为友好的并不是某个人或者某个村民，我想没有什么地方会比这里更让我觉得熟悉了。
Men frequently say to me,"I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and nights especially." I am tempted to reply to such - This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most diatant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should i feel lonely? Is not our planet is the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is what which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another. What do we want most to dwell near to? 人们常常对我说：“我想你在那里住着很寂寞吧，你一定想要离其他人近一些，特别是在那些下雨或者下雪的日子和夜晚。” 每当这时，我总是想要回答说——我们居住的这个地球不过是宇宙中的一个小点罢了。你觉得在我们的天文仪器甚至都无法测量的星星上，两个相距最远的人又能有多远呢？为什么我要觉得孤单呢？我们的星球不是还在银河里吗？你提出的问题在我看来并不是最为重要的。要有怎样一种空间才能将人和人隔开，并且让它们觉得孤单呢？我已经发现，两条腿再怎样努力也不能让两颗心相近半分。为什么我们总是希望和谁邻近呢？
I may be affected by a theartrical exhibition; on the other hand, i may not be affected by an actual event which appears to concern me much more. I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affectious; and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which i can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my experience, i am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no exprience, but taking note of it, and that is no more i than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned. This doubleness may easily make us poor neighbors and friends sometimes. 我可能会被一场演出而感动，另一方面，我也可能对一件和我关系更为密切的事情无动于衷。我只知道我是一个人；表达着我的思想和情感；我能够感受到自己的双重人格，这种人格让我和自己以及他人都保持一定的距离。但是无论我的经验多么丰富，我始终意识到我自己的一部分一直在一旁批评我，好像它并不是我的一部分，而是一个旁观者，和我没有一点共同经历，却在记录着它们，正如他并不是你，他也不能是我。等到人生的戏剧——极有可能是场悲剧——落幕，这个旁观者便自行离开。这好像是一种虚构的小说，一种凭想象捏造的东西。这种双重人格很容易让我们成为不易交往的朋友或者邻居。
Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. 孤单并不是通过人和人之间的真实距离来测算的。
Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. 社交往往过于廉价。我们相聚的时间及其短暂，没有时间在彼此身上发现新的价值。
The value of a man is not in his skin, that we should touch him. 人的价值不体现在表面，因此我们无须触碰对方。
Arrived there, the little house they fill, Ne looke for entertainment where none was; Rest is their feast, and all things at their will; The noblest mind the best contentment has. 到了这里，他们填充着的小房屋， 不寻求那些本来就没有的娱乐； 休息好比宴席，一切听其自然； 最高贵的心灵，最能知足自满。
He interested me because he was so quite and solitary and so happy withal; a well of good humor and contentment which overflowed at his eyes. His mirth was without alloy. 他引起我的兴趣是因为他是这样的安静，这样的孤单，而他的内心又是这样的愉悦。他的眼睛就像一口井，满溢出愉快和满足。他的快乐丝毫不参杂其他成分。
When Nature made him, she gave him a strong body and contentment for his portion, and propped him on every side with reverence and reliance, that he might live out his threescore years and ten a child. 当大自然创造人的时候，它赋予人一副强壮的身体，和对自己位置的满足，并且用四周的尊敬和信任支撑着他，他可以就这样像个孩子一样地一直活到 70 岁。
We are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cultivated fields and on the prairies and forests without distinction. 我们经常忘了太阳平等地照在我们耕作过的土地以及那些原始的草原和森林上，没有一丝差别。
Every man haas to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations. 无论是睡觉还是其他心不在焉的时候，每个人都应该在清醒之后常常看看指南针，确认方向，不要非到我们迷路或者看不清这个世界的时候才开始认识到自己的处境，发现我们自己，认识到我们的联系也有着无穷的界限。
I am convinced, that if all men were to live as simply as i then did, thieving and robbery would be unknow. There take place only in communities where some have got more thanis sufficient while others have not enough. 我的确相信，如果其他人和我一样简单地生活，那么偷窃和抢劫就不会发生了。发生这样的事情都是因为社会上有人得到的超过所需，而有人得到的则少于必需。
The fruits do not yield their true flavor to the purchaser of them, nor to him who raises them for the market. There is but one way to obtain it, yet few take that way. If you would know the flavor of huckleberries, ask the cowboy or the partridge. It is a vulgar error to suppose that you have tasted huckleberries who never plucked them. 水果是不肯让购买它的人享受它的色香味的，也不肯让那些栽培它们只为出售获取利益的商人们享受。要享受它们的色香味只有一个办法，但是很少有人采用。如果你要知道越橘的色、香、味，你就应该去问牧童和鹧鸪。那些从来不采摘越橘的人，自以为已经尝尽了它们的色香味，实际上这是一个庸俗的谬见。
White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed, and small enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, be carried off by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors; but being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and our successors forever, we disregard them, and run after the diamond of Kohinoor. 白湖和瓦尔登湖是大地上的巨型水晶，是光芒四射的湖。如果它们两个被凝冻起来，而且小巧玲珑，可以握于掌心，那大概早就被臣仆们拿去了，就像是翡翠钻石一样，镶嵌在帝王的王冠上面。但是它们的液体太过广阔，所以将永远属于我们以及我们的子孙后代，但是我们却将它抛弃，满世界地去追寻可希诺大钻石了。
Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not. Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs. 你可以不再以卖艺为生，应该游戏人生。尽可能地去欣赏大地，但是不要将它据为己有。因为缺乏进取心和信心，人们便要在买卖中如同奴隶一般地生活。
Men come tamely home at night only from the next field or street, where their household echoes haunt, and their life pines because it breathes its own breath over again; their shadows, morning and evening, reach farther than their daily steps. We should come home from far, from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience and character. 当夜幕降临的时候，人们总是不约而同地从附近的田间或者街道顺服地回到家中，他们的家中响彻着平凡的声音，他们在用自己生命消解着抑郁，因为他们不断地进行自身的循环呼吸，吐出气然后再吸进去。从早上一直到黄昏，他们的影子比他们每天的脚步跑的远得多。我们应该每天从远方，从奇遇、冒险和发现中，带些新的经验和性格回家。
If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to what extrenes, or even insanity, it may lead him; and yet taht way, as he groes more resolute and faithful, his road lies. 如果一个人能够跟随他最飘渺，却又最持久的天性，当然天性的建议是无比正确的，那他就不会不知道他自身的天赋将要把他引到什么极端，甚至是癫狂中去。可是唯有当他变得更加坚定，更加具有决心时，他眼前的路自然就铺成开来。
Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal - that is your success. 虽然一个人最终都难逃容颜和身体的衰老消退，然而或许没有人会因此而抱憾。因为这样的一生符合了更高的规律法则。如果你每日欢乐地迎接白日和黑夜的到来，那么生活就会散发出花朵和香草一样的芬芳，它就会变得更有韧性，更加灿烂，更加不朽——这就是成功的人生。
The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. 人们往往忽视了最大的收获和最大的价值。我们总是容易对它们是否真的存在而产生怀疑。很快我们便忘记了它们。它们才是最高的现实。可能人与人之间从来都不曾交流那些最震惊，最真实的事例。
I carry less religion to the table, ask no blessing; not because i am wiser than i was, but, i am obliged to confess, because, however much it is to be regretted, with years i have grown more coarse and indifferent. 我吃东西不太讲究宗教礼仪，也从不在餐前祈祷，并不是因为现在的我比过去的我更成熟更睿智，但是我不得不承认，这是因为，不管现实多么让人失望，我确实一年比一年粗俗下去，也变得更加冷漠无情。
We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its nature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own; that we may be well, yet not pure. 我们清晰地意识到在我们的身体里面住着一只野兽，当我们的更高等的天性昏昏欲睡的时，它就苏醒过来。它是卑鄙无耻的，肉欲淫荡的，无法整个从身体中驱除，像盘踞在我们生活和身体当中的蛔虫一样。我们或许可以躲避它，却永远无法改变它的天性。我担心着怪物本身亦异常强壮。即使我们看上去安然无恙，却不是彻底纯粹的健康。
Those same stars twinkle over other fields than these. - But how to come out of this condition and actually migrate thither? All that he could think of was to practise some new austerity, to let his mind descend into his body and redeem it, and treat himself with ever increasing respect. 同样的星星只会在另一片大地闪耀，而不是这里——可是如何摆脱眼前这种乏味的现状，真正地生活在别处呢？他所能够想到的只是试试另一种新的艰苦朴素，节衣缩食的生活，让他的思想沉入肉体中去，为它赎罪，将它从繁重的生活中解脱出来，一日比一日对自己施予更多的尊重。
As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age. 每一个季节对人类来说都是极其妙的。因此春天的来临很像是混沌初开，宇宙初创，黄金时代的再现。
With the liability to accident, we must see how little account is to be made of it. The impression made on a wise man is that of universal innocence. Poison is not poisonous after all, nor are any wounds fatal. Compassion is a very untenable ground. It must be expeditious. Its pleadings will not bear to be stereotyped. 不测随时来临，我们必须明白，不要介怀命运的解释。一个智慧者给人的印象总是无邪的。毒药不一定是毒的，伤口也未必会致命。恻隐之心是一片很不靠谱的土壤，它稍纵即逝，它诉诸同情的方法也不会一成不变。
It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. 惊人的是我们如此轻易就糊里糊涂地习惯于一种固定的生活，踏出一条自己的轨迹。
The purity men love is like the mists which envelope the earth, and not like the azure ether beyond. 人们所爱好的纯洁里包裹着大地的雾气，而不是头顶上那蓝色的天空。
No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well. 我们后天所赋予物质的外貌，绝不能像真理那样有利于我们。只有真理是永不凋敝的。
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shum it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. 无论你的生命有多么卑贱，你都要面对它，生活它，而不是躲避它，更别恶言相向，诅咒谩骂它。它并不像你想的那么糟糕。
Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. 万物从来未曾改变，是我们一直在变。要卖掉你的衣服，但要保留你的思想。
Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul. 多余的财富只能够买多余的东西，而人的灵魂所必需的事物是无须花钱购买的。
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. 让我们的眼睛看不见东西的光亮对于我们是黑暗。只有我们清醒地意识到的那一天才是真正的亮着。还会有更多天亮的日子。太阳不过是一颗启明星。