You must cultivate generosity and large-heartedness; you must be magnanimous and tolerant; you must have positive qualities, for a negative, shrinking, apologizing, roundabout man is despised.

你必须培养慷慨和大度的气量；你必须有雅量并对人容忍；你必须要有积极的特质，因为消极，畏缩，总是陪不是及徘徊不前的人总是让人瞧不起。

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Excepting its commendatory senses, tortoise has a derogatory sense. As one man running into difficulties, he resemble shrinking however head tortoise.

除了以上祥瑞之意，龟也有贬义，比如，表示一个人懦弱无能，遇到危险就退缩。

youdao

Waseige says his final 23 will come from within the shrinking 30-man training squad and is refusing to consider alternatives.

BBC: Baseggio joins casualties

Dates were arranged with Tatum O'Neal and Brooke Shields to prove he was all man, rather than the shrinking virgin of his other public self.

ECONOMIST: Michael Jackson, pop star, died on June 25th, aged 50

The study, which is based on 12, 279 interviews from 2006 to 2010, found a shrinking percentage of women moving in with a man for the first time because of marriage -- 23% in 2012, down from 30% in 2002 and 39% in 1995.

CNN: Report: More women moving in before marriage