I think it's rarely about what you actually learn in class—it's mostly about what questions you ask yourself.

生活是世界上最罕见的事情。大多数人只是存在，仅此而已。

你不能让恐惧支配你的生活。

You have to be willing to fail, to be wrong, to look stupid.

I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.