Not to be able to bear poverty is a shameful thing, but not to know how to chase it away by work is a more shameful thing yet.
Interpretation
It's shameful to be unable to endure poverty, but it is even more shameful to not take action to alleviate it through hard work.
This quote by Pericles emphasizes the importance of personal responsibility and the value of hard work in overcoming poverty. It suggests that while experiencing hardship is a part of life, failing to take proactive steps to improve oneβs situation is a greater failing, highlighting the dignity that comes with striving to change one's circumstances through effort and determination.
In practice
In a motivational speech to inspire students to pursue their goals.
For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart.
Just because you are not interested in politics, does not mean that politics is not interested in you.
Famous men have the whole earth as their memorial.
Those who are politically apathetic can only survive if they are supported by people who are capable of taking action.
For the whole earth is the tomb of famous men; not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.
For a man's counsel cannot have equal weight or worth, when he alone has no children to risk in the general danger.
If a person studies too much and exhausts his reflective powers, he will be confused, and will not be able to apprehend even that which had been within the power of his apprehension. For the powers of the body are all alike in this respect.
And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt, Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?
When everyone in America knows you're in a dreadful position, admit you're in a dreadful position. Don't lie about it and make them roll their eyes, tell the truth and make them blink.
Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter, wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others who are within his sphere of action: and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.
Of all our possessions, wisdom alone is immortal.
A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.
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