Learn to be pleased with everything, with wealth so far as it makes us beneficial to others; with poverty, for not having much to care for; and with obscurity, for being unenvied.
Interpretation
Embrace gratitude and contentment, regardless of your circumstances, recognizing their potential benefits.
This quote by Plutarch emphasizes the importance of acceptance and gratitude in life. It suggests that we should learn to be content with our situation, whether we possess wealth or are in poverty, and appreciate the benefits that each state can offer. Wealth can enable us to help others, poverty can free us from the burdens of excessive care, and obscurity can protect us from envy. This mindset encourages a focus on the positives in any circumstance and promotes a life of humility and service.
In practice
In a motivational speech about embracing life's challenges.
Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face, where the character is revealed, than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men.
It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief - the other contempt.
Come back with your shield - or on it
The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.
For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.
Our senses through ignorance of Reality, falsely tell us that what appears to be, is. FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real
You used to be much more..."muchier." You've lost your muchness.
The fault finder will find faults even in paradise and thereby miss the joys that recognition of the positives bring.
When there are multiple versions of a story, you really have three ways to go. You can pick the most sensational version. You can try to balance things in your gut to get to what you think is the honest truth. Or you can err on the side of kindness.
Wonder is that possession of the mind that enchants the emotions while never surrendering reason. It is a grasp on reality that does not need constant high points in order to be maintained, nor is it made vulnerable by the low points of life's struggle.
It is higher and nobler to be kind.
My principles are more important than the money or my title.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.