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🌾 Simplicity
“The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness and that appreciation is simple”
— Dalai Lama
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones simply one at a time”
— Confucius
“Very little is needed to make a happy life it is all within yourself”
— Marcus Aurelius
“To be content with little is difficult; to be content with much, impossible.”
— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
“Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.”
— Isaac Newton
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”
— Simone Weil
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”
— Aristotle
“I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen.”
— Henry David Thoreau
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love”
— Rumi
“Out of clutter find simplicity from discord find harmony in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”
— Albert Einstein
“With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy.”
— Lope de Vega
“We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness but happiness is found in simplicity not in escape”
— Leo Babauta
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions but in having few wants”
— Epictetus
“The greatest step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go.”
— Steve Maraboli
“Stillness is the key to all good things in life”
— Ryan Holiday
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
— Hans Hofmann
“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add but when there is nothing left to take away”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty I think only how to solve the problem”
— Buckminster Fuller
“Essentialism is not about how to get more things done it is about how to get the right things done”
— Greg McKeown
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
— William James
“Drink your tea slowly and reverently as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves slowly and simply”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone”
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex”
— E.F. Schumacher
“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”
“I know that I know nothing and in that simple admission lies the beginning of wisdom”
— Socrates
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are waiting to see us act with beauty and courage”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
“The essence of deep ecology is to ask deeper questions about life”
— Arne Naess
“And once the storm is over you will not remember how you made it through but you will be transformed”
— Haruki Murakami
“The extension of the art of dwelling is the art of living”
— Charlotte Perriand
“Before we can talk about simplicity we must understand complexity”
— Konosuke Matsushita
“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”
— Lao Tzu
“The height of sophistication is simplicity”
— Clare Boothe Luce
“When we start to feel the shortage of resources simplicity becomes our greatest teacher”
— D.T. Suzuki
“Live simply so that others may simply live”
— Mahatma Gandhi
“It is not a daily increase but a daily decrease hack away the unessential”
— Bruce Lee
“What is the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary”
— Gary Keller
“When you love someone the best thing you can offer is your presence and that offering is beautifully simple”
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become”
— James Clear
“The moment one gives close attention to anything even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious awesome indescribably magnificent world in itself”
— Henry Miller
“God is in the details”
— Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
“In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“True beauty is not made it is born naturally”
— Sori Yanagi
“In the beginners mind there are many possibilities in the experts mind there are few”
— Shunryu Suzuki
“The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life”
— Marie Kondo
“The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed it is a process of simplification”
— Elbert Hubbard
“The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity and the height of simplicity is natural action”
“You are therefore I am”
— Satish Kumar
“A beautiful thing is never perfect it is simply itself in its natural simplicity”
— Publilius Syrus
“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies”
— Mother Teresa
“Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause and of obstinacy in a bad one”
— Laurence Sterne
“Design is so simple that is why it is so complicated”
— Paul Rand
“Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide keep it that simple”
— Pema Chodron
“When you reach the top of the mountain keep climbing”
— Zen Proverb
“Knowing how to simplify is one of the most difficult things in the world.”
— Vincent van Gogh
“Do small things with great love and keep your intentions simple and pure”
“Complexity is your enemy and any fool can make something complicated”
— Richard Branson
“Everyday mind is the way”
— Nansen
“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony.”
— Unknown
“The things you own end up owning you simplicity breaks that chain of ownership”
— Joshua Fields Millburn
“Simplicity boils down to two steps identify the essential and eliminate the rest”
“Our life is frittered away by detail simplify simplify”
“Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement.”
— William Morris
“Less is more”
— Robert Browning
“The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming not for the person we were in the past”
“Minimalism is just a tool to rid yourself of unnecessary things so that you can focus on what matters”
— Fumio Sasaki
“It is not that we have a short time to live but that we waste a great deal of it simplicity reclaims that wasted time”
— Seneca
“The best is the enemy of the good”
— Voltaire
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”
— Leonardo da Vinci
“There is no greatness where there is no simplicity goodness and truth”
— Leo Tolstoy
“Every day priests minutely examine the law and endlessly chant complicated sutras before doing that though they should learn how to read the love letters sent by the wind and rain the snow and moon”
— Ikkyu
“I do the same thing over and over improving bit by bit”
— Jiro Ono
“Nature is not a place to visit it is home”
— Gary Snyder
“The miracle is not to walk on water but to walk on the green earth in the present moment simply and with awareness”
“Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design and in life simplicity cures it”
— Dieter Rams
“The duty of delight is to find beauty and simplicity in everyday things”
— Dorothy Day
“The greatest truths are the simplest, and so are the greatest men.”
— Julius Charles Hare
“I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library”
— Jorge Luis Borges
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”
“Love people and use things because the opposite never works and simplicity makes this clear”
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger more complex and more violent it takes a touch of genius to move in the opposite direction”
“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies and small is simple”
“Nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished”
“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
“If you do not prioritize your life someone else will”
“The peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief”
— Wendell Berry
“Nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished through simplicity”
“A life of simplicity is a life of truth and a life of truth needs no defense”
— Gandhi
“If you meet the Buddha on the road kill him”
— Linji
“The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings”
— Okakura Kakuzo
“A book is a mirror if an ass peers into it you cannot expect an apostle to look out”
— Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
“Beauty speaks like an oracle and ever since man has heeded its message in many ways”
— Luis Barragan
“A calm mind a fit body and a house full of love cannot be bought they must be earned”
— Naval Ravikant
“The inferno of the living is not something that will be it is what is already here”
— Italo Calvino
“The three most harmful addictions are heroin carbohydrates and a monthly salary”
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts and that beauty is found in simplicity”
— Rachel Carson
“Smile breathe and go slowly”
“Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”
— William of Ockham
“The earth has enough for everyones need but not for everyones greed”
— Vandana Shiva
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you”
— Maya Angelou
“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful”
— John Maeda
“Find the intersection of what you love what you are good at what the world needs and what you can be paid for”
— Ikigai Philosophy
“As you simplify your life the laws of the universe will be simpler solitude will not be solitude poverty will not be poverty”
“Our life is frittered away by detail so simplify”
“Excellence is not a singular act but a habit developed through simple consistent practice”
“Small is beautiful and simple is sustainable”
“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”
“Simplicity is the seal of truth.”
— Herman Boerhaave
“Open your arms to change but dont let go of your values keep your life simple by holding what matters”
“The first step in crafting the life you want is to get rid of everything you dont”
— Joshua Becker
“The most fundamental aggression to ourselves is remaining ignorant about our own simplicity”
“Live each present moment completely and the future will take care of itself enjoy life simply”
— Paramahansa Yogananda
“Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple”
— C.W. Ceram
“Less is only more where more is no good”
— Frank Lloyd Wright
“Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance.”
— Epicurus
“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees”
— Pablo Neruda
“Nothing is more simple than greatness indeed to be simple is to be great”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity and simplicity is the clearest path to service”
“Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves.”
— Edwin Way Teale
“The greatest sophistication is found in the simplest things”
“I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter”
— Blaise Pascal
“Minimalism is a tool to get rid of excess in favor of what matters”
“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction”
— Erich Fromm
“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise seek what they sought”
— Matsuo Basho
“Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers”
— Josef Albers
“The world is vast and wide why do you put on your robes at the sound of a bell”
— Yunmen
“The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough”
— Rabindranath Tagore
“The first step in crafting the life you want is to get rid of everything you do not”
“To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee and revery”
— Emily Dickinson
“Receive without conceit release without struggle keep things simple”
“Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in few”
— Pythagoras
“Creativity is subtraction”
— Austin Kleon
“Unborn Buddha mind is the most simple and direct truth”
— Bankei
“Life is simple it is just not easy but simplicity makes even the hard parts bearable”
— William Wordsworth
“Just this is it”
— Dongshan
“The simplest things are often the truest.”
— Richard Brinsley Sheridan
“How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does and keeps his path simple”
“Design dissolving in behavior is the most supreme form of design”
— Naoto Fukasawa
“Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop simply and without regret”
“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone and that is the power of simplicity”
— Alan Watts
“Simplicity patience compassion these three are your greatest treasures”
“The soul of a tree lives on in my furniture”
— George Nakashima
“Live quietly in the moment and see the beauty of all before you”
“In this world we walk on the roof of heaven gazing at flowers”
— Kobayashi Issa
“Be as simple as you can be you will be astonished to see how uncomplicated and happy your life can become”
“Your daily life is your temple and your religion”
— Kahlil Gibran
“The simplicity on the other side of complexity is worth more than the simplicity before it”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes
“To attain knowledge add things every day to attain wisdom remove things every day”
— Laozi
“Simplicity is the nature of great souls.”
— Papa Ramadas
“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not but rejoices for those which he has through simplicity”
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary”
“Truly it is in the darkness that one finds the light so when we are in sorrow then this light is nearest of all and it comes simply”
— Meister Eckhart
“The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty”
— Kenko Yoshida
“The whole is more than the sum of its parts when we keep things simple enough to see the whole”
“Life is really simple but we insist on making it complicated”
“Simplicity is an exact medium between too little and too much.”
— Joshua Reynolds
“The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life and keeping them simple”
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain”
“Most humans are never fully present in the now because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important simplicity says otherwise”
— Eckhart Tolle
“Sitting quietly doing nothing spring comes and the grass grows by itself”
“Wealth is the slave of a wise man and the master of a fool simplicity reveals the difference”
“Making the simple complicated is commonplace making the complicated simple that is creativity”
— Charles Mingus
“How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives”
— Annie Dillard
“Absorb what is useful discard what is not add what is uniquely your own”
“The spiritual life is not about acquiring it is about letting go”
“In the end these things matter most how well did you love how fully did you live how deeply did you let go”
— Jack Kornfield
“What a liberation to realize that the voice in my head is not who I am and that realization is utterly simple”
“Make the best use of what is in your power and take the rest as it happens”
“The secret of happiness is not found in seeking more but in developing the capacity to enjoy less”
“Complicating is easy simplifying is difficult”
— Bruno Munari
“Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance”
— Coco Chanel
“It is not the man who has too little but the man who craves more that is poor simplicity cures that poverty”
“If it isnt a clear yes then it should be a clear no and that clarity is the gift of simplicity”
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts”
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak”
“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone.”
— Lin Yutang
“The life of a designer is a life of fight against the ugliness”
— Massimo Vignelli
“Good design is as little design as possible”
“Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet”
“Simplicity is the key to brilliance”
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately”
“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched they must be felt with the heart”
— Helen Keller
“Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time”
— Hermann Hesse
“The living moment is everything”
— D.H. Lawrence
“It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add but when there is nothing more to remove and that is pure simplicity”
“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know”
“The world is not to be put in order the world is order incarnate”
“In my designs I try to achieve simplicity by exploiting natural light and the beauty of materials”
— Tadao Ando
“Everything should be made as simple as possible but not simpler”
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony”
— Thomas Merton
“The soul is healed by being with children”
— Fyodor Dostoevsky
“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world”
— E.B. White
“For the simplicity that lies this side of complexity I would not give a fig but for the simplicity that lies on the other side I would give my life”
“If the only prayer you say in your entire life is thank you that will suffice because simplicity is enough”
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life”
“In nature nothing exists alone and this interconnection is understood best through simple observation”
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the simplest and greatest accomplishment”
“In limitations he first shows himself the master and the law can only give us freedom through simplicity”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Design is not just what it looks like design is how it works and the best designs work simply”
— Steve Jobs
“Find beauty in imperfection and accept the natural cycle of growth and decay”
— Wabi Sabi Philosophy
“Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness”
— Zhuangzi
“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent intolerable uncertainty”
— Ursula K. Le Guin
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts”
“In the end it is not the years in your life that count it is the life in your years”
— Abraham Lincoln
“My religion is very simple my religion is kindness”
“The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction”
“When you put your house in order you put your affairs and your past in order too and that process is simple”
“There is more to life than increasing its speed and simplicity reveals what that more is”
“Simplicity is the glory of expression”
— Walt Whitman
“Emptiness is not nothingness it is a richness of potential”
— Kenya Hara
“Complexity is your enemy any fool can make something complicated it takes a genius to make something simple”
“I would have written a shorter letter but I did not have the time because brevity requires simplicity”
“You can observe a lot by watching”
— Yogi Berra
“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”
“The more simple we are, the more complete we become.”
— Auguste Rodin
“Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.”
— Thomas à Kempis
“Have you eaten your rice porridge Then wash your bowl”
— Joshu
“Simplify simplify simplify”
— Thoreau
“The more you know the less you need”
— Yvon Chouinard
“Super Normal is the result of a long tradition of evolutionary advancement in the shape of everyday things”
— Jasper Morrison
“Beauty is not in the face beauty is a light in the heart”
— Khalil Gibran
“Less is more in art in life and in the pursuit of meaning”
“Nothing is so strong as gentleness nothing so gentle as real strength”
— Saint Francis de Sales
“Do nothing which is of no use”
— Miyamoto Musashi
“Truly happy memories always live on shining more and more beautifully in the heart even as time passes”
— Banana Yoshimoto
“True beauty is born of the imperfect”
— Soetsu Yanagi
“Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.”
“One should use common words to say uncommon things.”
— Arthur Schopenhauer
“Everybody is talented original and has something important to say”
— Brenda Ueland
“There is a voice that doesnt use words listen to it for it speaks in simplicity”
“Having less makes you happier this is one of the simplest and most profound truths of human experience”
“The art of living is more like navigation than warfare for what is important is to understand the winds and ride the waves simply”
“Everything is sculpture any material any idea without hindrance born into space I consider sculpture”
— Isamu Noguchi
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
“Walking and walking the green mountains never end”
— Santoka Taneda
“Less is only more where more is no good and simplicity knows the difference”
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”
“Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity”
— Plato
“Begin at once to live and count each separate day as a separate life”
“Every day is a good day”
— Ummon
“The secret of happiness you see is not found in seeking more but in developing the capacity to enjoy less”
“Less but better is the essence of good design and good living”
“Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of everything that distracts us from it”
“As you start to walk on the way the way appears and the way is always simple”
“Less but better”
“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge”
— Bertrand Russell
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
“Before enlightenment chop wood carry water After enlightenment chop wood carry water”
“To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night — these are some of the rewards of the simple life.”
— John Burroughs
“The mind should be nowhere in particular let it fill the whole body”
— Takuan Soho
“Simple can be harder than complex you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple”
“Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth you owe me”
— Hafiz
“It is not that we have a short time to live but that we waste a great deal of it”
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than one seeks”
— John Muir
“I apologize for such a long letter I did not have time to write a short one”
— Mark Twain
“The way of the essentialist is the path of being true to yourself and your highest contribution keeping life simple and focused”
“The rain has stopped the clouds have drifted away and the weather is clear again”
— Ryokan
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“If you cant explain it simply you dont understand it well enough”
“Simple can be harder than complex”
“Success is not the key to happiness happiness is the key to success”
— Albert Schweitzer
“It is not daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away the unessential.”
“We think that the more we have the happier we will be but we learn that the opposite is often true”
“Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury — to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone.”
“The real core of my work is the way light enters a space”
— Peter Zumthor
“Besides the noble art of getting things done there is the noble art of leaving things undone”
“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything”
— Warren Buffett
“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do”
— Thomas Jefferson
“Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance”
“A truly great person is one who is simple natural and unpretentious”
— Ikeda Daisaku
“If you cannot find the truth right where you are where else do you expect to find it”
— Dogen Zenji
“If it is not a clear yes then it is a clear no”
— Derek Sivers
“There are no uninteresting things only uninterested people”
— G.K. Chesterton
“There are two ways of spreading light to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it”
— Edith Wharton
“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving and that is your own self”
— Aldous Huxley
“Before you leave the house look in the mirror and take one thing off simplicity is the final touch”
“That is happiness to be dissolved into something complete and great”
— Willa Cather
“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone”
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
“Who looks outside dreams who looks inside awakens”
— Carl Jung
“Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.”
“To be great be whole exclude nothing”
— Fernando Pessoa
“The value of art is in the observer when you find truth you find beauty”
— Agnes Martin
“To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk — these are some of the rewards of the simple life.”
“The highest form of intelligence is the ability to observe without evaluating”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti
“God created paper for the purpose of drawing architecture on it everything else is at least for me an abuse of paper”
— Alvar Aalto
“Beginners practice not thinking about whether a thing is good or bad they practice just doing it”
— Huang Po
“Owning less is better than organizing more because simplicity beats complexity every time”
“The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops but the cultivation and perfection of human beings”
— Masanobu Fukuoka
“The sage does not hoard the more he gives to others the more he has for himself through simplicity”
“In life there are things that make your heart beat faster in delight”
— Sei Shonagon
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