Love your life

However mean your life is , meet it and live it ; do not shun it and call it hard names . It's 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 pleasent , thrilling and 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 . Most think that they are above being supported by the town ; but it oftener happens that they are above supporting themselves by dishonest means , which should be more disreputable . Cultivate poverty like a garden herb and 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 but we change , sell your clothes and keep your thoughts .