Not to be able to bear poverty is a shameful thing, but not to know how to chase it away by work is a more shameful thing yet.
Interpretation
It's shameful to be unable to endure poverty, but it is even more shameful to not take action to alleviate it through hard work.
This quote by Pericles emphasizes the importance of personal responsibility and the value of hard work in overcoming poverty. It suggests that while experiencing hardship is a part of life, failing to take proactive steps to improve oneβs situation is a greater failing, highlighting the dignity that comes with striving to change one's circumstances through effort and determination.
In practice
In a motivational speech to inspire students to pursue their goals.
For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart.
Just because you are not interested in politics, does not mean that politics is not interested in you.
Famous men have the whole earth as their memorial.
Those who are politically apathetic can only survive if they are supported by people who are capable of taking action.
For the whole earth is the tomb of famous men; not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.
For a man's counsel cannot have equal weight or worth, when he alone has no children to risk in the general danger.
The stern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the great everlasting things which matter for a nation - the great peaks we had forgotten, of Honor, Duty, Patriotism, and clad in glittering white, the great pinnacle of Sacrifice pointing like a rugged finger to Heaven.
You'd think someone who'd been to medical school would be able to hear through a stethoscope that somebody was empty inside.
The older I get, the less I obsess about material stuff. In fact, stuff has become the enemy. There always seems to be more of it than I have storage in my house!
The only happy author in this world is he who is below the care of reputation.
Let us not only remember the past and its required sacrifice, let us also remember that we are responsible to build a legacy for the generations which follow us.
Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are false, but only three are holy: "I will it!
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