There is some advantage in being the humblest, cheapest, least dignified
man in the village, so that the very stable boys shall damn you.
Methinks I enjoy that advantage to an unusual extent. I am not above being
used, aye, abused sometimes.
Just in proportion to the outward poverty, is the inward wealth.
In cold weather fire burns with a clearer flame.
If you mean by hard times, times, not when there is no bread, but when
there is no cake, I have no sympathy with you.
Cultivate poverty like sage, like a 
garden herb. My greatest skill
has been but to want little. A man is rich in proportion to the number
of things which he can afford to let alone. By poverty, i.e. simplicity
of life and fewness of incidents, I am solidified and crystallized as a
vapor or liquid by cold. It is a singular concentration of strength
and energy and flavor. Simplify, simplify! Instead of three
meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes,
five; and reduce other things in proportion. I had but three chairs
in my house, one for solitude, two for company, and three for social events.
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.
It is not what he has, that directly expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.
Only that traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better. That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
It is the greatest of all advantages to have no advantage at all. I
find it invariably true, the poorer I am, the richer I am. What you
consider my disadvantage, I consider my advantage. While you are
pleased to get knowledge and culture in many ways, I am delighted to think
I am getting rid of them. What you call bareness and poverty is to
me simplicity. God could not be unkind to me if he should try.
How often you make a man richer in spirit in proportion as you rob him
of earthy luxuries and comforts. Yet men have come to such a pass
that they frequently starve, not from want of necessaries, but from want
of luxuries.
He who has little, has to spare, for he who has less
The mind should not be filled with desires. The individual who is at one with the Tao is aware of the distinction between that which is needed as a sufficiency, and that which is a desire, or merely wanted rather than needed.
The finger that points the way, belongs to the hand that will provide.
Let me see no other conflict but with prosperity. Everything superfluous is hostile!
Those who desire the fewest things, are nearest to God.
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