Quotes About Simplicity

The house is still but a sort of porch at the entrance of a burrow.

He teaches how to void excrement and urine and the like, elevating what is mean, and does not falsely excuse himself by calling these things trifles.

Simply to see to a distant horizon through a clear air,—the fine outline of a distant hill or a blue mountain-top through some new vista,—this is wealth enough for one afternoon.

All true greatness runs as level a course, and is as unaspiring, as the plow in the furrow. It wears the homeliest dress and speaks the homeliest language

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;…so simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real.

Blessed are they who never read a newspaper, for they shall see Nature and, through her, God.

Indeed, the more you have of such things the poorer you are.

Live at home like a traveler.

The soul grows by subtraction, not addition.

Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your intention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.

I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans

my greatest skill has been to want but little

None of the brute creation requires more than Food and Shelter

It is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a diet as will not offend the imagination; but this, I think, is to be fed when we feed the body; they should both sit down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may be done. The fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest pursuits. But put an extra condiment on your dish, and it will poison you.

Nor wars did men molest, When only beechen bowls were in request.

Y quizá sería bueno que pasáramos más de nuestros días y noches sin que mediara obstáculo alguno entre nosotros y los cuerpos celestes, y que el poeta no hablara tanto bajo techado o que el santo no se acogiera con tanta frecuencia a su protección.

Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must be stripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper.

Nuestras casas son una propiedad tan aparatosa que a menudo estamos más encerrados que alojados en ellas.

Para resumir, estou convencido, por e fé e experiência, que a automanutenção neste mundo não é um sofrimento mas um passatempo, se a pessoa viver de modo simples e sábio; tanto que as ocupações dos povos mais simples são os esportes dos mais sofisticados. Não é necessário que um homem ganhe a vida com o suor de seu rosto, a não ser que ele sue muito mais que eu

La mayoría de los hombres, incluso en este país relativamente libre, se afanan tanto por los puros artificios e innecesarias labores de la vida, que no les queda tiempo para cosechar sus mejores frutos.

You must live within yourself, and depend upon yourself always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs.

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only.

Innan vi kan pryda våra hus med vackra föremål måste väggarna plockas rena, våra liv rensas ut, därefter kan vi börja med ett gott hushåll och ett vackert liv från grunden; som det är nu odlas smaken för det sköna bäst utomhus, där det varken finns hus eller hushåll

Ich für meinen Teil war nie besonders wählerisch; wenn es nötig wäre, könnte ich eine gebratene Ratte mit Appetit verzehren. Ich bin froh, immer Wasser getrunken zu haben, und das aus dem gleichen Grund, aus dem ich den natürlichen Himmel dem eines Opiumrauchers vorziehe.