The wisdom of life
文摘
教育
2024-05-01 15:21
江苏
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Health outweighs all other blessings so
much that one may really say that a healthy beggar is happier than an ailing
king. A quiet and cheerful temperament, happy in the enjoyment of a perfectly
sound physique, an intellect clear, lively, penetrating and seeing things as
they are, a moderate and gentle will, and therefore a good conscience-place.
For what a man is in himself, what accompanies him when he is alone, what no
one can give or take away, is obviously more essential to him than everything
he has in the way of possessions, or even what he may be in the eyes of the world.
An intellectual man in complete solitude has excellent entertainment in his own
thoughts and fancies, whilst no amount or diversity of social pleasure,
theatres, excursions and amusements, can ward off boredom from a dullard. A good,
temperate, gentle character can be happy in needy circumstances, whilst a covetous,
envious and malicious man, even if he be the richest in the world, goes miserable.
To one who has the constant delight of a special individuality, with a high
degree of intellect, most of the pleasures which are run after by mankind are perfectly
superfluous; they are even a trouble and a burden.So the first and most essential element in
our life’s happiness is what we are,--our personality…What a man has in himself
is, then, the chief element in his happiness.Men are not influenced by things but by
their thoughts about things. And, in general, nine-tenths of our happiness depends
upon health alone. With health, everything is a source of pleasure; without it,
nothing else, whatever it may be , is enjoyable; even the other personal blessings,--a
great mind, a happy temperament—are degraded and dwarfed for want of it.But however much health may contribute to that
flow of good spirits which is so essential to our happiness, good spirits don’t
entirely depends on health; for a man may be perfectly sound in his physique
and still possess a melancholy temperament and be generally given up to sad
thoughts. The ultimate cause of this is undoubtedly to be found in innate, and
therefor unalterable, physical constitution, especially in the more or less
normal relation of a man’s sensitiveness to his muscular and vital energy. Abnormal
sensitiveness produces inequality of spirits, a predominating melancholy, with
periodical fits of unrestrained liveliness.The man of inner wealth wants nothing from
outside but the negative gift of undisturbed leisure, to develop and mature his
intellectual faculties, that is, to enjoy his wealth; in short, he wants
permission to be himself, his whole life long, every day and every hour. If he
is destined to impress the character of his mind upon a whole race, he has only
one measure of happiness or unhappiness-to succeed or fail in perfecting his
powers and completing his work. All else if of small consequence. Accordingly,
the greatest minds of all ages have set the highest value upon undisturbed leisure,
as worth exactly as much as the man himself…. The man who is born with a talent
which he is meant to use, finds his greatest happiness in using it.It is difficult to keep quiet if you have
nothing to do. A measure of intellect far surpassing the ordinary is as
unnatural as it is abnormal. But if it exists, and the man endowed with it is
to be happy, he will want precisely that undisturbed leisure which the others
find burdensome or pernicious; for without it he is a Pegasus in harness, and
consequently unhappy.Therefore, it will very much conduce to our
happiness of we duly compare the value of what a man is in and for himself with
what he is in the eyes of others. Under the former comes everything that fills
up the span of our existence and makes it what it is, in short, all the
advantages already considered and summed up under the heads of personality and
property; and the sphere in which all this takes place is the man’s own
consciousness. On the other hand, the sphere of what we are for other people is
their consciousness, not ours; it is the kind of figure we make in their eyes,
together with the thoughts which this arouses. But this is something which has
no direct and immediate existence for us, but can affect us only mediately and
indirectly, so far, that is, as other people’s behavior towards us is directed
by it; and even then it ought to affect us only in so far as it can move us to
modify what awe are in and for ourselves. Apart from this, what goes on in other
people’s consciousness is , as such, a matter of indifference to us: and in
time we get really indifferent to it, when we come to see how superficial and
futile are most people’s thoughts, how
narrow their ideas, how mean their sentiments, how perverse their opinions, and
how much of error there is in most of them; when we learn by experience with
what depreciation a man will speak of his fellow, when his not obliged to fear
him, or thinks that what he says will not come to his ears. And if ever we have
had an opportunity of seeing how the greatest of men will meet with nothing but
slight from half-a-dozen blockheads, we shall understand that to lay great
value upon what other people say is to pay them too much honor.The foundation of our whole nature, and therefore,
of our happiness, is our physique, and the most essential factor in happiness
is heath, and, next in importance after health, the ability to maintain
ourselves in independence and freedom from care. There can be no competition or
compensation between there essential factors on the one side, and honor, pomp, rank
and reputation on the other, however much value we may set upon the latter. No
one would hesitate to sacrifice the latter for the former, if it were
necessary. We should add very much to our happiness by a timely recognition of the
simple truth that every man’ chief and real existence is in his own skin, and
not in other people’s opinions; and consequently, that the actual conditions of
our personal life,--health, temperament, capacity, income, wife, children,
friends, home, are a hundred times more important for our happiness than what
other people are pleased to think of us; otherwise we shall be miserable.But if a man finds himself in possession of
great mental faculties, such as alone should venture on the solution of the
hardest of all problems—those which concern nature as a whole and humanity in
its widest range, he will do well to extend his view equally in all directions,
without ever straying too far amid the intricacies of various by-paths, or
invading region little know; in other words, without occupying himself with
special branches of knowledge, to say nothing of their petty details. There is
no necessity for him to seek out subjects difficult of access, in order to
escape a crowd of rivals; the common objects of life will give him material for
new theories at once serious and true; and the service he renders will be
appreciated b all those—and they form a great part of mankind—who know the facts
which he treats. What a vast distinction there is between students of physics,
chemistry, anatomy, mineralogy, zoology, philology, history, and the men who
deal with the great facts of human life, the poet and the philosopher!
