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Quotes About Simplicity

At that moment I rejoiced that I was free of possessions, free of all·ties, free of fear and envy and malice. I could have passed quietly from one dream to another, owning nothing, regretting nothing, wishing nothing. I was never more certain that life and death are one and that neither can be enjoyed or embraced if the other be absent.
~ Henry Miller
Someday I am going to own a few feet of earth somewhere and put a house over it. Just one big room will do, with a stove and a basin of water, a huge desk, a bookcase and an easel. Then life can go rolling by, and what floats in through my door will be sufficient for me.
~ Henry Miller
In vacuum one has no need for new things, nor of excitement, nor of foreign stimuli. One has only to maintain a bare survival, to vegetate, like a fetus in a jar.
~ Henry Miller
A weird sort of contentment in those days. No appointments, no invitations for dinner, no program, no dough. The golden period, when I had not a single friend.
~ Henry Miller
He had a little story for every situation, Ghompal. I relished them hugely; they were like simple, homeopathic remedies, little pellets of truth garbed in some innocuous cloak. You could never forget them afterwards, that was what I liked about these yarns. We write fat books to expound a simple idea; the Oriental tells a simple, pointed story which lodges in your brain like a diamond
~ Henry Miller
There is a world here as full and rich, as compelling and instructive, as Thoreau found at Walden.
~ Henry Miller
Though he exudes culture and learning, he is at home with children, nobodies and idiots. His daily routine is so simple as to be almost primitive. It begins with a long morning prayer for the protection of the creature world against the sadistic men of science who torture and vivisect them. Without wants, he has become free as a bird, and what is more important, he is acutely aware of his hard-won freedom and rejoices in it.
~ Henry Miller
Only when we are truly alone does the fullness and richness of life reveal itself to us. In simplifying our lives, everything acquires a significance hitherto unknown. When we are one with ourselves the most insignificant blade of grass assumes its proper place in the universe
~ Henry Miller
The Way is not difficult; but you must avoid choosing!" Or, as another ancient one put it—"The Way is near, but men seek it afar. It is in easy things, but men seek it in difficult things.
~ Henry Miller
No podía desperdiciar el tiempo haciendo de maestro, abogado, médico, político o cualquier otra cosa que la sociedad pudiera ofrecer. Era más fácil aceptar trabajos humildes porque me dejaban la mente en libertad.
~ Henry Miller
Irradiar bondad es maravilloso, porque es tónico, vigorizador, vivificador. Pero ser simplemente es más maravilloso todavía, porque es inacabable y no requiere demostración.
~ Henry Miller
Live deep instead of fast.
~ Henry Seidel Canby
Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers,—   Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were they free from   Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of republics.   Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;   But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners;   There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
We are most nearly ourselves when we achieve the seriousness of the child at play.
~ Heraclitus
The intelligent person, viewing the great number of so-called diseases that arise out of this prostration of the functions of life, and realising that they have one and all grown out of the habitual violations of the laws of life, will recognise at once that the first step in the restoration of health needs must be to make amends at once by the unconditional return to the simplicity and perfect obedience to the laws that have been so perseveringly violated.
~ Herbert M. Shelton
I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.
~ Herman Melville
Yet, after all, insensible as he is to a thousand wants, and removed from harassing cares, my not the savage be the happier man..?
~ Herman Melville
Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple child's play.
~ Herman Melville
For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blankets between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.
~ Herman Melville
I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country.
~ Herman Melville
Thirty to 40 years ago, most financial decisions were fairly simple.
~ Scott Cook
Stick to the classics, and you can't ever go wrong. I see old ladies on the street who have fabulous style and realize it's because they are probably wearing really classic items that they've had for years and years. I think if you find something that suits you, you should just stick to it.
~ Alexa Chung
I always use the same guitar; I got this guitar years and years ago for nine pounds. It's still got the same strings on it.
~ Brian Eno
Years and years ago, I said I did not want to write academic books. I want to write books that are in the language of the common person so that Joe, who didn't even go to college, can sit down and read my book and get it and apply it to his life.
~ Gary Chapman