"

A lady once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the house, nor time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it, preferri...more

"

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...more

"

I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular...more

"

I am thinking by what long discipline and at what cost a man learns to speak simply at last.

"

If we would aim at perfection in any thing, simplicity must not be overlooked.

"

that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-ha...more

"

It is desirable that a man live in all respects so simply and preparedly that if an enemy take the town... he can walk out the gate empty-handed and w...more

"

Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us ...more

"

I delight to come to my bearings,—not walk in procession with pomp and parade, in a conspicuous place, but to walk even with the Builder of the univer...more

"

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.

"

Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to t...more

"

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.

"

None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.