Quotes About Simplicity

Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.

You should not bring more items and hurdles to the obstacle course.

Mostly things are not that way, that simple and pure, with so much focus given to each syllable of life as life sings itself. But that kind of attention is the prize. To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass--seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic way that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one.

Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.

Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader

You pay twenty-five dollars to hear one of my heroes, Thich Nhat Hanh, say: "When you walk, just walk." You think: I paid good money for this? Notice your feet as they connect to the earth? Left foot, right foot, breathe? Crazy.

Dying people can teach us this most directly. Often the attributes that define them drop away—the hair, the shape, the skills, the cleverness. And then it turns out that the packaging is not who that person has really been all along. Without the package, another sort of beauty shines through.

It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony

It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.

She sorted out the young men. Tanner's opportunism amused but did not specifically attract her; the blond Nordsen seemed too simple; dark-haired Al-atpay had a kind of obstinacy with which she felt no compassion: Mir-Ahnin's bitterness hinted an inner darkness she did not wish to lighten, although he made the biggest outward play for her attention.

Sitting alone with Jean, Avery felt for the first time that he was part of the world, engaged in the same simple happiness that was known to so many and was so miraculous. He wanted to know everything; he did not mean this carelessly. He wanted to know the child and the schoolgirl, what she'd believed in and what she'd loved, what she'd worn and what she'd read -- no detail was too small or insignificant -- so that when at last he touched her, his hands would have this intelligence.

Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning sun can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem, or saying a prayer.

One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach—waiting for a gift from the sea.

There are, in fact, certain roads that one may follow. Simplification of life is one of them.

not the life of simplicity but the life of multiplicity that the wise men warn us of. It leads not to unification but to fragmentation. It does not bring grace; it destroys the soul.

To ask how little, not how much, can I get along with. To say—is it necessary?—when I am tempted to add one more accumulation to my life, when I am pulled toward one more centrifugal activity.

These values are signposts toward another way of living: simplicity of living, as much as possible, to retain a true awareness of life; balance of physical, intellectual, and spiritual life; work without pressure; space for significance and beauty; time for solitude and sharing; closeness to nature to strengthen understanding and faith in the intermittency of life.

I begin to shed my Martha-like anxiety about many things. Washable slipcovers, faded and old—I hardly see them; I don't worry about the impression they make on other people. I am shedding pride.

Clothes, first. Of course, one needs less in the sun. But one needs less anyway, one finds suddenly. One does not need a closet-full, only a small suitcase-full.

There are certain roads that one may follow. Simplification of life is one of them.

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greed, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea. Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Plotinus was preaching the dangers of multiplicity of the world back in the third century.

Is it not rather ugly, one may ask? One collects material possessions not only for security, comfort or vanity, but for beauty as well. Is your sea-shell house not ugly and bare? No, it is beautiful, my house. It is bare, of course, but the wind, the sun, the smell of the pines blow through its bareness. The unfinished beams in the roof are veiled by cobwebs. They are lovely, I think, gazing up at them with new eyes;

One learns first of all in beach living the art of sheding;how little one can get along with, not how much....To say-is it necessary?-when I am tempted to add one more accumulation to my life, when I am pulled toward one more centrifugal activity. One is free, like the hermit crab, to change one's shell.