When things go wrong and will not come right, Though you do the best you can, When life looks black as the hour of night, A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.
Interpretation
In tough times, simple pleasures can be a source of comfort.
This quote suggests that when life becomes difficult and nothing seems to be improving, finding solace in simple pleasures, such as enjoying a pint of beer, can help lift one's spirits. It highlights the importance of small comforts during challenging times and how they can provide a sense of relief and normalcy amidst chaos.
In practice
You could use this quote to lighten the mood at a gathering with friends during tough times.
After a time," said old Mathers disregarding me, "I mercifully perceived the errors of my ways and the unhappy destination I would reach unless I mended them. I retired from the world in order to try to comprehend it and to find out why it becomes more unsavoury as the years accumulate on a man's body. What do you think I discovered at the end of my meditations?" I felt pleased again. He was now questioning me. "What?" "That No is a better word than Yes," he replied.
Past humanity is not only implicit in each new man born but is contained in him. Humanity is an ever-widening spiral and life is the beam that plays briefly on each succeeding ring. All humanity from its beginning to its end is already present but the beam has not yet played beyond you.
I saw that my witticism was unperceived and quietly replaced it in the treasury of my mind.
Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.
The continual cracking of your feet on the road makes a certain quantity of road come up into you. When a man dies they say he returns to clay but too much walking fills you up with clay far sooner (or buries bits of you along the road) and brings your death half-way to meet you. It is not easy to know what is the best way to move yourself from one place to another.
Strange enlightenments are vouchsafed to those who seek the higher places.
Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.
I'm proud to have been a Yankee. But I have found more happiness and contentment since I came back home to San Francisco than any man has a right to deserve. This is the friendliest city in the world.
The fact that there is always a positive side to life is the one thing that gives me a lot of happiness.
Today be happy with what you have - not discontent with what you don't have.
A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor β such is my idea of happiness.
I believe in the possibility of happiness, if one cultivates intuition and outlives the grosser passions, including optimism.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.