《菜根谭》（逆境砺志、顺境杀人）
居逆境中，周身皆针砭药石，砥节砺行而不觉；处顺境内，眼前尽兵刃戈矛，销膏靡骨而不知。
When you face trying circumstances, everything that you encounter has the effect of bitter medicinal herbs and the stone needles used in acupuncture. These needles and medicines serve to refine your character and conduct, although you do not realize it. When you are experiencing smooth sailing, it is as if the path ahead were strewn with weapons, which harm you bit by bit until you are finally destroyed. At such times a man can be compared to lamp oil, which is gradually consumed until there is none left, although he is unaware of it.
（保罗·怀特 译）
When put into adversity, one would feel as if his whole body were placed in medicines and stone needles for acupuncture; under such circumstances, he will subconsciously focus attention on the refinement of his virtue and rectification of this conduct. When one rides on the crest of success, it would be as if the path ahead were covered with swords and dagger-axes; at such moment, his energy and willpower will be gradually worn down without being noticed.
（周文标 译）
In adversity, one is surrounded, as it were, by salutary though unpalatable remedies, which help improve one’s moral integrity and character without one’s knowing it; in prosperity, one is confronted, so to speak, with dangerous weapons, which harm and destroy one’s flesh and bone without one’s realizing it.
（蒋坚松 译）
In adverse situations, even though around you are needles and medicines that will help you through the trials, you are unaware of them. In favorable circumstances, all around you are swords and halberds which will whittle away your flesh and bones, you do not know about them.
（Robert Aitken & Daniel W. Y. Kwok 译）
