We'll be happy with whatever wealth we have if we've learned to enjoy living simply. Without simple living, no amount of money is enough. With simple living, you never need much money. The solution is always within reach — even poverty can become wealth if you add thrift to it. Let's get used to ignoring flashy appearances. Judge things by how useful they are, not by how fancy they look. Let food satisfy your hunger and drink satisfy your thirst. Keep your desires within reasonable limits. Learn to use your body properly. Dress and live the way our ancestors approved of, not copying the latest trends. Learn to control yourself more. Stop chasing luxury. Put limits on your pride. Calm your anger. Don't look down on poverty. Practice thrift, even though many people are embarrassed to do it. Use simple, cheap solutions for what your body actually needs. Lock away all those wild hopes and ambitions. Make it your job to get your wealth from yourself, not from luck.
We shall be pleased with this measure of wealth if we have previously taken pleasure in thrift, without which no riches are sufficient, and with which none are insufficient, especially as the remedy is always at hand, and poverty itself by calling in the aid of thrift can convert itself into riches. Let us accustom ourselves to set aside mere outward show, and to measure things by their uses, not by their ornamental trappings: let our hunger be tamed by food, our thirst quenched by drinking, our lust confined within needful bounds; let us learn to use our limbs, and to arrange our dress and way of life according to what was approved of by our ancestors, not in imitation of new-fangled models: let us learn to increase our continence, to repress luxury, to set bounds to our pride, to assuage our anger, to look upon poverty without prejudice, to practise thrift, albeit many are ashamed to do so, to apply cheap remedies to the wants of nature, to keep all undisciplined hopes and aspirations as it were under lock and key, and to make it our business to get our riches from ourselves and not from Fortune.