If you could once make up your mind never to undertake more work ... than you can carry on calmly quietly without hurry or flurry ... and if the instant you feel yourself growing nervous and ... out of breath you would stop and take a breath you would find this simple common-sense rule doing for you what no prayers or tears could ever accomplish.

Meaning: It is easy to imagine an impressive plan without providing what would make it real. Castles in the air picture ambition without foundations, asking what practical support the idea needs rather than condemning imagination itself.

Meaning: Another worker can often find something to improve in work already considered finished. The second barber’s remaining task suggests that completion depends on standards and perspective, without proving that earlier work was careless or endless correction is necessary.

Meaning: Distance may weaken a mild attachment while making an intense one feel stronger. The contrast between cooling and inflaming describes different possible responses to absence, rather than a dependable rule for measuring love or deciding how relationships should work.