Economy is half the battle in life, but it is not so hard to earn money as to spend it well. Hundreds would never have known want if they had not first known waste.
Interpretation
Managing money wisely is more challenging than earning it.
This quote emphasizes the importance of financial prudence in life. While many may find it relatively easy to earn income, the real challenge lies in making wise spending decisions. The quote suggests that wastefulness can lead to unnecessary hardship, implying that better financial management can prevent future wants and struggles.
In practice
In a financial literacy workshop, this quote can be used to encourage participants to focus on budgeting.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.
You look closely enough, you'll find that everything has a weak spot where it can break, sooner or later.
But Chinese civilization has the overpowering beauty of the wholly other, and only the wholly other can inspire the deepest love and the profoundest desire to learn.
Ignorance is a virus. Once it starts spreading it can only be cured by reason. For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure.
If one is true to one's inner self, and follows its wisdom, who is without a teacher?
Thoughts are like drops of water: with our thoughts we can drown in a sea of negativity, or we can float on the ocean of life.
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