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.
I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.
People who are most afraid of their dreams convince themselves they don't dream at all.
Their silence is praise enough.
Fear is stupid. So are regrets.
And never resist a perfect moment.
Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.
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