simplicity

Simplicity of possessions

Most smart people over time realize that possessions don’t make them happy. You have to go through that … As you get older, you just realize that there’s no happiness in material possessions. ― Naval Ravikant

I can think of no greater happiness in life than to be surrounded only by the things I love. How about you? ― Marie Kondo, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Everyone started out a minimalist. Our worth is not the sum of our belongings. Possessions can make us happy only for brief periods. Unnecessary material objects suck up our time, our energy, and our freedom. ― Fumio Sasaki, Goodbye, Things

Appoint certain days on which to give up everything and make yourself at home with next to nothing … For no one is worthy of god unless he has paid no heed to riches. I am not, mind you, against your possessing them, but I want to ensure that you possess them without tremors; and this you will only achieve in one way, by convincing yourself that you can live a happy life even without them, and by always regarding them as being on the point of vanishing. ― Seneca

Simplicity of life

A quiet and modest life brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant unrest. ― Einstein

May I not also say that the simplest pleasures are the most enduring, the commonest delights are the most invigorating, the form of happiness which is the most easily available is the best? The further we stray from Nature the harder are we to please, and he knows the truest pleasure who can find it in the simplest forms. ― W. J. Dawson

We need examples of people who, leaving to Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek—not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure, not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions, self-possession. ― Ruskin

Happiness is simple pleasures, is spending time doing what you love and spending time with those you love. ― Leo Babauta

A monastic life is characterized by simple beauty and unexpected joy. Monks find happiness in things that may seem trivial to those who pursue the material trappings of success. Watching the seasons change—the blossoming of the magnolias, the dazzling fall foliage, the first snowfall—brings indescribable joy and gratitude. ― Haemin Sunim, The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down

The technologist and psychologist Sep Kamvar ran a bit of a social experiment … and found that young people and old people define happiness in distinct ways. Young people tend to speak about happiness in terms of excitement. Older people tend to speak about happiness in terms of peacefulness. For young people, happiness was accomplishment. For their elders, it was contentment. ― Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key

In the 1980s, simplicity was seen primarily as ‘downshifting,’ or pulling back from the rat race of consumer society. Several decades later, there is a growing recognition of simplicity as ‘upshifting’ ― or moving beyond the rat race to the human race. Increasingly, the mainstream media and society are recognizing how people’s search for happiness is taking them beyond consumerism to a more balanced and integrated approach to living. ― Duane Elgin

• Poverty is involuntary and debilitating, whereas simplicity is voluntary and enabling. Poverty is mean and degrading to the human spirit, whereas a life of conscious simplicity can have both a beauty and a functional integrity that elevates the human spirit. ― Duane Elgin, Voluntary Simplicity

• What is the Meaning of Simple Living, High Thinking? | Sloww
• What is Downshifting? How to Transition into Simple Living | Sloww