In a calm sea every man is pilot.

But all sunshine without shade, all pleasure without pain, is not life at all. Take the lot of the happiest – it is a tangled¹ yarn². Bereavements and blessings³, one following another, make us sad and blessed by turns. Even death itself makes life more loving. Men come closest to their true selves in the sober moments of life, under the shadows of sarrow and loss.

In the affairs of life or bussiness, it is not intellect that tells so much as character, not brains so much as heart, not genius so much as self-control, patience, and discipline, regulated by judgment⁴.

I have always believed that the man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without. In an age of extravagance and waste, I wish I could show to the world how few the real wants of humanity are.

To regret one’s errors to the point of not repeating them is true repentance⁵. There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.

译文：

风平浪静的大海，每个人都是领航员。

但是，只有阳光而无阴影，只有欢乐而无痛苦，那就不是人生。以最幸福的人的生活为例–它是一团纠缠在一起的麻线。丧母之痛和幸福祝愿彼此相接，使我们一会伤心，一会高兴。甚至死亡本身也会使生命更加可亲。人们在生命的庄严时刻，在哀伤和丧亲的阴影之下，最接近真实的自我。

在生活或事业中，性格比才智更能指导我们，心灵比头脑更能引导我们，天资远不如由判断力所约束的自制、耐心和教养。

我一向认为，内心开始生活的更为严谨的人，他外在的生活会更为简朴。在一个物欲横流的时代，但愿我能向世人表明：人类真正的需求是多么稀少。

反思自己的过错以至于不重蹈覆辙才是真正的悔悟。优于别人，并不高贵，真正的高贵是优于过去的自己。