50 simple living quotes - UPDATED

[forestdale]

It was suggested to me that a list of simple living quotes would be popular so this post will start off a quotations list.  It will operate in conjunction with the 100 ways to simplify your life list that is also in Chosen Path.  If you haven't added your bit to it then please do so and be a part of this.

 

This 50 quotations list will be favourite quotations about simple living.  I'm hoping that when it's finished and made to look pretty that you'll download it and refer to it when you need inspiration.  Please add your favourite quote about simple living so that it might inspire others here at Frugal Village.

 

I'm going to kick it off with a quote by an ancient Greek, Agesilaus who said: "By sowing frugality we reap liberty, a golden harvest." 

[Heather]

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. ~Hans Hofmann, Introduction to the Bootstrap, 1993

The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

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

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! 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, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. ~Henry David Thoreau


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

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

[Darlene]

"The greater part of our
happiness or misery depends
on our dispositions, and not
our circumstances.."

~Martha Washington

[forestdale]

This is Sara's quote that she put into the other list, I've just transferred it here:

One of my favorite quotes.

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

[forestdale]

I think it would be remiss of me to not include the quote from Elise Boulding that Sara has on our home page.

Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.

Precisely the least, the softest, lightest, a lizard's rustling,
a breath, a flash, a moment - a little makes the way
of the best happiness. Frederick Nietzsche

Be wary of any enterprise that requires new clothes. Henry David Thoreau

[forestdale]

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Henry David Thoreau

[forestdale]

"I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan ... to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience," Henry David Thoreau

[forestdale]

There must be more to life than having everything! Maurice Sendak

[forestdale]

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; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring—these are some of the rewards of the simple life. John Burroughs

[forestdale]

I have learned by some experience, by many examples, and by the writings of countless others before me, also occupied in the search, that certain environments, certain modes of life, certain rules of conduct are more conducive to inner and outer harmony than others. There are, in fact, certain roads that one may follow. Simplification of life is one of them. Ann Morrow Lindbergh

[isaacsmommy]

People in life who are the happiest don’t have the best of everything…they make the best of everything they have.

[forestdale]

Happiness comes from spiritual wealth, not material wealth... Happiness comes from giving, not getting. If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it.
John Templeton

[Sara Noel]

Bethany is looking to create a nice printable sheet that can be printed, framed, hung, etc. Having members participate in offering the FV top 100 simple living tips here
100 ways to simplify list - UPDATED
and quotes in this thread is what will make it more special.

Bethany, There are some great motivational/inspirational quotes made from some members in the goalgetters affirmations.

I think this is a lovely idea and I can only say that quotes and tips are inspiring to me. There are many days that I read quotes from Calico or an inspiring post from other members and it really does motivate me, inspire me, and can completely change my mood at times. I know that I'll be first in line to print one off and hang it in my home. Thank you so much for organizing this. Positive affirmations are empowering.

Here are the links to those quotes in the goalgetters forum:

GG Daily Affirmation 1-3-2004

GG affirmation - Jan. 4th

GG- Daily Affirmation Jan 5

GG: Daily Affirmation 1-6

GG: Daily affirmation - Jan. 7th

GG - Daily affirmation - Jan. 8th

GG. - Daily affirmation - Jan. 12th

[forestdale]

Thanks for the links and the encouragement, Sara. I'll check them out and add some of the quotes to our lists.

[forestdale]

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. William Faulkner