And if you can't shape your life the way you want, at least try as much as you can not to degrade it.
Interpretation
Strive to improve your life even if you can't control everything.
This quote by C.P. Cavafy emphasizes the importance of taking responsibility for our lives. While we may not have full control over our circumstances, we should actively strive to avoid negative actions that would degrade our quality of life, suggesting that maintaining integrity and a sense of purpose is essential.
In practice
In a motivational talk about personal development.
Give me artificial flowers - porcelain and metal glories - neither fading nor decaying, forms unaging. Flowers of the splendid gardens of another place, where Forms and Styles and Knowledge dwell. I love flowers made of glass or gold, true Art's true gifts, their painted hues more beautiful than nature's, worked in nacre and enamel, with perfect leaves and branches.
When you set out on your journey to Ithaca, pray that the road is long, full of adventure, full of knowledge.
Don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now, work gone wrong, your plans all proving deceptive — don’t mourn them uselessly. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say it was a dream, your ears deceived you: don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
To certain people there comes a day when they must say the great Yes or the great No.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you. Wise as you have become, with so much experience, you must already have understood what these Ithacas mean.
I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm not white.
No Man has a more perfect reliance on the all-wise and powerful dispensations of the Supreme Being than I have, nor thinks his aid more necessary...The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude towards the great Author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf....In war He directed the sword, and in peace, He has ruled in our councils.
The formula of the argument is simple and familiar: to dispose of a problem all that is necessary is to deny that it exists.
Of everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living nothing is in my eyes better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings and they do not serve for anything secret or bad.
In the long term the most important question for a company is not what you are but what you are becoming.
True independence and freedom can only exist in doing what's right.
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