I have known want and struggle and anxiety and despair. I have always had to work beyond the limits of my strength. As I look back upon my life, I see it as a battlefield strewn with the wrecks of dead dreams and broken hopes and shattered illusions--a battle in which I always fought with the odds tremendously against me, and which has left me scarred and bruised and maimed and old before my time.
Yet, I have no pity for myself; no tears to shed over the past and gone sorrows; no envy for the women who have been spared all I have gone through. For I have only existed.
I have drunk the cup of life down to its very dregs. They have only sipped the bubbles on top of it. I know things they will never know. I see things to which they are blind.
It is only the women whose eyes have been washed clear with tears who get the broad vision that makes them little sisters to all the world.
I have learned in the great University of Hard Knocks a philosophy that no woman who has had an easy life ever acquires. I have learned to live each day as it comes and not to borrow trouble by dreading the morrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us. I put that dread from me because experience has taught me that when the time comes that I so fear, the strength and wisdom to meet it will be given me. Little annoyances no longer have the power to affect me. After you have seen your whole edifice of happiness topple and crash in ruins about you, it never matters to you again that a servant forgets to put the doilies under the finger bowls, or the cook spills the soup.
I have learned not to expect too much of people , and so I can still get happiness out of the friend who isn′t quite true to me or the aquaintance who gossips. Above all, I have acquired a sense of humor, because there were so many things over which I had either to cry or laugh. And when a woman can joke over her troubles instead of having hysterics, nothing can ever hurt her much again.
I do not regret the hardships I have known, because through them I have touched life at every point I have lived. And it was worth the price I had to pay.
我體會過希望、掙扎、焦慮與絕望的真正含義。我總是超越身體極限地努力工作着。回首我過去的生活，那就像一個戰場，裏面充滿了破碎的夢想、希望與幻想。這場極不利於我的戰爭令我遍體鱗傷、提前衰老。
然而我並未因此憐憫自己；我沒有爲過去流淚與悲傷；我絲毫不去嫉妒那些從未經歷過我的痛苦的女人們。因爲我真正地活過一回，而她們，只是生存着而已。
我品嚐了生命之杯裏的每一滴，包括那些渣滓，而她們僅僅只是吮到了杯口的泡沫而已。我的所知、所見，她們永遠不會知曉，不會看到。
只有被淚水洗過眼睛的女人們，纔能有更寬廣的視野，這使她們能與整個世界的人們和諧相處。
我在充滿艱辛曲折的社會大學中，曾領悟到一條哲學真理，那是養尊處優的女人們無法體會到的。我學會了“活在今天，而不去庸人自擾地預支明天的煩惱。”正是對未來的擔憂使我們怯懦，我之所以不去擔憂，是因爲經驗告訴我，每當我感到如此害怕的'時候，上天賜予的力量和智慧就會如約而至。那些小小的煩惱再也無法左右我的行爲——當你親眼目睹所有幸福的生活在你面前轟然崩塌之後，你就再也不會去在乎那些諸如僕人忘了在洗手盆下加墊、廚師不小心弄灑了菜湯之類的瑣事了。
我學會了不要對人們期望過高，因此我仍能從那些對我並不真心的朋友或是愛道人長短的熟人那裏獲得快樂。最重要的是，我已經培養出了一種幽默感，因爲以前有太多的事情讓我非喜即悲。當一個女人能夠在困難面前淡然一笑，而不再歇斯底里時，已經沒有什麼能夠傷害到她了。
我對經歷過的困難一點也不後悔，正因爲有了這些經歷，才讓我真實地體味到了生活的方方面面。爲此，我的付出是值得的。
