Quotes About Simplicity

Epictetus, the pagan philosopher, proved in his life the truth of his own words — A man can be happy without wealth, without family, without office or honor, without health, without anything that the world seeks after.

Who is the richest of men? asked Socrates. He who is content with the least, for contentment is nature's riches.

Anything can become a children's book if you give it to a child...Children are actually the best (and worst) audience for literature because they have no patience with pretence.

All the common people want is to be left alone. All the ordinary soldier wants is to collect his pay and not get killed. That's why the great forces of history can be manipulated by astonishingly small groups of determined people.

I designed Ender's Game to be as clear and accessible as any story of mine could possibly be. My goal was that the reader wouldn't have to be trained in literature or even in science fiction to receive the tale in its simplest, purest form. If everybody came to agree that stories should be told this clearly, the professors of literature would be out of a job, and the writers of obscure, encoded fiction would be, not honored, but pitied for their impenetrability.

Americans were all farmers and shopkeepers at heart....

Para conservar la alegría de la infancia tendrías que morir siendo niño, o vivir como tal, sin convertirte nunca en hombre, sin crecde jamás.

The people in the King's city [...] thought that these highvalley folk lived like animals. But in truth these villagers lived pure human life. they needed each other to survive, and knew it. They had no conspiracies and no secrets, no ambitions and no feuds. They couldn't afford the luxury of treating any man or woman or child as expendable.

Are there any who can honestly boast, My worshippers obey my good laws, And treat each other kindly, And live simple generous lives?

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.

They get up early, because they have so much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to think about.

I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.

Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.

She knew nothing but she had everything he had lost.

The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me.

When a golden girl can win Prayer from out the lips of sin, When the barren almond bears, And a little child gives away its tears, Then shall all the house be still And peace come to Canterville.

With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols of things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.

So often, thought Rami, the ordinary can save us.

Puurheid in beweging.

The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward. No

Coarse rice to eat, water to drink, my bended arm for a pillow - therein is happiness. Wealth and rank attained through immoral means are nothing but drifting clouds.

The Master said, "What a worthy man was Yan Hui! Living in a narrow alley, subsisting upon meager bits of rice and water—other people could not have borne such hardship, and yet it never spoiled Hui's joy. What a worthy man was Hui!" (Analects 6.11)

Poor food and water for dinner, a bent arm for a pillow – that is where joy resides. For me, wealth and renown without honor are nothing but drifting clouds.