* “If one's life is simple, contentment has to come. Simplicity is extremely important for happiness. Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have, is very vital: satisfaction with just enough food, clothing, and shelter to protect yourself from the elements. And finally, there is an intense delight in abandoning faulty states of mind and in cultivating helpful ones in meditation.” - The Dalai Lama

 

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
-- Leonardo da Vinci

If you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.
-- Annie Dillard

 

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -- Albert Einstein * I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind. -- Albert Einstein

“Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
-- Albert Einstein

 

* The intention of this way of life [voluntary simplicity] is not to dogmatically live with less. It's a more demanding intention of living with balance. This is a middle way that moves between the extremes of poverty and indulgence. ~ Duane Elgin

* There's enough on this planet for everyone's needs but not for everyone's greed. -- Mohandas K. Gandhi * “Live simply so that others may simply live.” -- Mohandas Gandhi Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man's happiness really lies in contentment. -- Mohandas Gandhi

* There's enough on this planet for everyone's needs but not for everyone's greed. ~ Mohandas Gandhi

Simplicity, clarity, singleness: these are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness and joy.
-- Richard Halloway

Our affluent society contains those of talent and insight who are driven to prefer poverty, to choose it, rather than submit to the desolation of an empty abundance.
-- Michael Harrington

 

* "The future belongs to those who understand that doing more with less is compassionate, prosperous, and enduring, and thus more intelligent, even competitive." ~ Paul Hawken

Simplicity is indeed often the sign of truth and a criterion of beauty.
-- Mahlon Hoagland

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
-- Hans Hofmann

The world has to learn that the actual pleasure derived from material things is of rather low quality on the whole and less even in quantity than it looks to those who have not tried it.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

I have come to terms with the future. From this day onward I will walk easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill no living things. Live in harmony with all creatures. I will restore the earth where I am. Use no more of its resources than I need. And listen, listen to what it is telling me.
-- M.J. Slim Hooey

We don't need to increase our goods nearly as much as we need to scale down our wants. Not wanting something is as good as possessing it.
-- Donald Horban

Materialism is the only form of distraction from true bliss.
-- Doug Horton

You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.
-- Vernon Howard

The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed - it is a process of elimination.
-- Elbert Hubbard

The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its poverty by how little.
-- W. R. Inge

Voluntary simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more.
-- John Kabat-Zinn

The little things? The little moments? They aren't little.
-- John Kabat-Zinn

Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.
-- Thomas a Kempis

Nature uses as little as possible of anything.
-- Johannes Keppler

Teach us delight in the simple things,
And mirth that has no bitter springs;
Forgiveness free of evil done,
And love to all men beneath the sun.
-- Rudyard Kipling

 

Simplicity

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Simplicity Day - July 12