If God had made its presence, in person but only telling you that however you strive with might and main, you will end up in stagnation—then what will you do? I would say to sail against the current, I have to push on not to quit; if I don’t strive I will go further and fare worse.

The significance of hard work is not only to achieve success: so many people have tried, but ultimately cut no figure. The meaning of efforts, for an obscure man, is to prove that he is still alive, and for a deathly life he always has tremendous fear.

Many of us are in their plight, in which they display their own struggle. Some of the struggle has been working hard, but some remains only as suffering pains.

There are busy people, like those who enjoy themselves, investing high enthusiasm while they don’t even know. But when they are personally having recreation, they would be rather tired because it has no function of compensating for tiredness, but has only been the routine chores of life.

I set a ceiling and a floor for my life, the ceiling being success which brings fame and fortune, and the floor being the ordinary which maintains basic happiness. Nobody can go beyond the upper limit, but one doesn’t spend effort to drop under the lower, which a failure is to be.

By receiving what one says, our recognition should not rest in whether it is “sweet”, for there could be deception; but whether hope or desperation it transmits—though two versions they are, a common fact is possibly conveyed, for example to say a man is too much stressed, or just too foolish.