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However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.
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“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.”

Henry David Thoreau

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Source
Walden
Date
1854
Meaning

Meaning of “However mean your life is, meet it and…”

Thoreau asks for direct engagement with the life actually present rather than contempt for it because it falls short of wealth, status or imagined alternatives.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Walden, “Conclusion,” Project Gutenberg #205. The sentence opens a passage urging the reader to “Love your life, poor as it is” and noting that a quiet mind may live contentedly even in materially poor circumstances. It is not an argument that poverty or injustice should never be changed.

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Themes

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Acceptance Quotes About Reality, Limits & ChangeCalmDeepGratitudeHappinessInner PeaceJoyLifeLife AdviceLife LessonsPeacePositive Quotes About a Constructive OutlookShortSimplicityUnderstandingWisdom Quotes About Judgment & Living WellPerspectiveWisdom About Life
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Therefore the sufficiency of contentment is an enduring and unchanging sufficiency.
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“Therefore the sufficiency of contentment is an enduring and unchanging sufficiency.”

Lao Tzu · Tao Teh King · ancient
Meaning & context

Contentment supplies a form of enoughness that does not depend on continually acquiring more, making inward sufficiency less vulnerable to comparison and appetite.

Source details

Tao Teh King, chapter 46, James Legge translation; the statement follows warnings about ambition, discontent, and the wish to keep getting.

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Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.
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“Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.”

Marcus Aurelius · Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus · c. 170
Meaning & context

Marcus joins mortality with thankfulness: a completed life is imagined as a ripe fruit that leaves without complaint while acknowledging the nature and conditions that made its growth possible.

Source details

Meditations, Book IV, section 48 in George Long’s public-domain translation, Project Gutenberg #6920/#15877 tradition. The olive image follows a reflection on the shortness of life and frames gratitude as part of accepting mortality rather than denying loss.

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He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy.
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“He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy.”

William Blake · Eternity · c. 1790s
Meaning & context

Trying to possess a joyful moment permanently can damage it, while accepting impermanence allows experience to remain alive and free.

Source details

Short poem commonly titled “Eternity”; Blake contrasts grasping with the passing movement of joy.

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