Meaning of “Go home and lead a simple life.”

The Secret Garden (1911), Chapter XXIII, “Magic.” Immediately after recalling Mary’s encouragement, Colin says that he had to try himself at the same time. The line keeps effort inside the novel’s fictional experiment/Magic rhetoric and is not clinical guidance.

The Lady of the Shroud, Project Gutenberg #3095. The wording is quoted in a letter as the remembered wisdom of Rupert’s mother; “wants” and “want” are deliberately contrasted.

Some Fruits of Solitude, Preface, reviewed against the Oxford Text Archive transcription of the licensed 1693 edition. Penn says time is what people want most but use worst and immediately frames stewardship of time in explicitly religious accountability to God, neighbour and self; it remains Quaker conduct-of-life reflection rather than productivity research.

The Gospel of Wealth, first essay; 1889 North American Review text. Carnegie explicitly separates ordinary competence needed for family maintenance and education from the concentrated surplus wealth his argument addresses.

The Analects of Confucius, James Legge’s public-domain English translation; Book XV distinguishes ordinary faults from the refusal to reform them.

Thrift, Chapter II, “Habits of Thrift,” Project Gutenberg #14418. The sentence summarizes Smiles’s preceding argument that social improvement begins with individual conduct, example and self-respect before one attempts to elevate others.