Quotes about Simplicity

Half of the confusion in the world comes from not knowing how little we need... I live more simply now, and with more peace.

In Japan, I took part in a tea ceremony. You go into a small room, tea is served, and that’s it really, except that everything is done with so much ritual and ceremony that a banal daily event is transformed into a moment of communion with the universe.

The tea master, Okakura Kakuzo, explains what happens:

“Tea ceremony is a way of worshipping the beautiful and the simple. All one’s efforts are concentrated on trying to achieve perfection through the imperfect gestures of daily life. Its beauty consists in the respect with which it is performed. If a mere cup of tea can bring us closer to God, we should watch out for all the other dozens of opportunities that each ordinary day offers us."

An Old Farmer's Advice:

* Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong. *

* Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.*

* Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.*

* A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.*

* Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled.*

* Meanness don't jes' happen overnight.*

* Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.*

* Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.*

* It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.*

* You cannot unsay a cruel word.*

* Every path has a few puddles.*

* When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.*

* The best sermons are lived, not preached.

* Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.*

* Don't judge folks by their relatives.*

* Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.*

* Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.*

* Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't bothering you none.*

* Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a Rain dance.*

* If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.*

* Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.*

* The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin'.*

* Always drink upstream from the herd.*

* Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.*

* Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.*

* If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.*

* Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply.*

* Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.*

For the most part, we, who could choose simplicity, choose complication.

From the state of the Uncarved Block comes the ability to enjoy the simple and the quiet, the natural and the plain. Along with that comes the ability to do things spontaneously and have them work, odd as that may appear to others at times. As Piglet put it in Winnie-the-Pooh, "Pooh hasn't much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right."

Sometimes we don't know what's best until we're forced into it. Often you can be just as happy or even happier with less.

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.

For the accomplished warrior, belief is not a form of strategy, nor is it borrowing the stories of previous warriors from books and stories. Trying to theorize and borrow ideas doesn’t seem to help. The notion of belief, or view, here is based on complete simplicity. Your view is not affected by liberalism or conservatism, nihilism or eternalism, at all. Your view is straightforward and simple; it is almost a cosmic domestic view. It is the notion of complete simplicity. When you meet a person, you don’t have to develop a whole style of how to view that person according to either the historic or present situation, the sociological context, his religious connections, or whatever it may be. You don’t have to go through all that. You can have a direct relationship, which is very simple, direct, and straightforward—extremely straightforward.

Science tends more and more to reveal to us the unity that underlies the diversity of nature.  We must have diversity in our practical lives; we must seize Nature by many handles.  But our intellectual lives demand unity, demand simplicity amid all this complexity.  Our religious lives demand the same.  Amid all the diversity of creeds and sects we are coming more and more to see that religion is one, that verbal differences and ceremonies are unimportant, and that the fundamental agreements are alone significant.  Religion as a key or passport to some other world has had its day; as a mere set of statements or dogmas about the Infinite mystery it has had its day.  Science makes us more and more at home in this world, and is coming more and more, to the intuitional mind, to have a religious value.  Science kills credulity and superstition but to the well-balanced mind it enhances the feeling of wonder, of veneration, and of kinship which we feel in the presence of the marvelous universe.  It quiets our fears and apprehensions, it pours oil upon the troubled waters of our lives, and reconciles us to the world as it is.

The essence of voluntary simplicity is living in a way what is outwardly simple and inwardly rich.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

Being a coffee addict and living in Seattle is like being an alcoholic and having a studio apartment in the middle of a brewery.
And here in Seattle, you go into a coffee shop, and you get people who are ordering their double caffeinated cappuccino organic soy wheat free-range coffee bean grown in one-acre, you know, freedom-fighting plots in Colombia. But I like my coffee straight and black. I like it simple.

A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one's husband, but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it.

Simplicity can be very complex to achieve.

Keep it simple.

Independent travel does that, bringing temporarily together these wandering ships that would otherwise pass in the night. Relationships were mostly brief and sometimes downright fleeting. The barriers and masks of settled existence melted away, allowing strangers to become fast friends, if only for a day. We travellers needed that, having deliberately stepped away from the social safety net of family, school, work and community.

Simplicity is the only sensible policy when fast reactions are required in confused situations.

Our life has a boundary but there is no boundary to knowledge.
To use what has a boundary to pursue what is limitless is dangerous;
with this knowledge, if we still go after knowledge, we will run into trouble.
Do not do what is good in order to gain praise.
If you do what is bad be sure to avoid the punishment.
Follow the Middle Course, for this is the way to keep yourself together,
to sustain your life, to care for your parents and to live for many years.

Insomuch as you can be simple and humble, and you can want nothing more than to know and serve God, you can rise to the heights of spiriitual life.

"The less we have, the more room we have to live the right sized lives." from What we might learn to live without and why

Seek perfection in simplicty.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

It is all so very simple but this simplicity will not be seen via your familiar vision of looking at everything via the running commentary of your mind informancy. Awakening to the state of the natural man will only come about through you consciously choosing to move from this, that already is - and this you are very capable of.

Next time you are designing a process, a product, or a service, ask yourself, “What can I remove?” For most consumers, simplicity is more important than comprehensiveness (and complexity).

The concept of “taking away” is also a great time management technique.  In addition to your “to do” list, be sure to create a “don’t do” list.  Become masterful at killing products, eliminating non-value adding tasks, and removing old/pointless habits.

Have a PBS mind in an MTV world.

"Everything in moderation, kid. Everything in moderation."

"Everything in moderation, kid. Everything in moderation."

"Everything in moderation, kid. Everything in moderation."

The future belongs to those who understand that doing more with less is compassionate, prosperous and enduring, and thus more intelligent, even competetive.

It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary.