Quotes About Simplicity

Only rarely, at the end of our century, does life offer up a vision as pure and peaceful as this one: a solitary man on a bucket, fishing through eighteen inches of ice in a lake that's constantly turning over its water atop an arcadian mountain in America.

You're somebody who has banished all superfluous sentiments from his life. No asinine longings to be home again. No patience for the nonessential. Only time for what's indispensable.

Some cooks prepare their meals and leave a big mess for later, but the way of zen is to clean as you go.

Zen is nothing more than adhering to such simple tasks, with full attention.

Dependence, humility, simplicity, cooperation, and a sense of abandon are qualities greatly prized in the spiritual life, but extremely elusive for people who live in comfort.

Jesus gave us a model for the work of the church at the Last Supper. While his disciples kept proposing more organization ? Hey, let's elect officers, establish hierarchy, set standards of professionalism ? Jesus quietly picked up a towel and basin of water and began to wash their feet.

Shouldn't we be presenting an alternative to the prevailing culture rather than simply mimicking it? What would a church look like that created space for quietness, that bucked the celebrity trend and unplugged from noisy media, that actively resisted our consumer culture? What would worship look like if we directed it more toward God than toward our own amusement?

Dependence, humility, simplicity, cooperation, and a sense of abandon are qualities greatly prized in the spiritual life, but extremely elusive for

She was simpler, less fractured by life during her youth.

Simplicity. Ah, that I can offer in abundance.

Perhaps we will not be great people, chosen by God, but just happy.

The art of happiness is being content with what you have,' she would say, looking with apparent satisfaction out of the dusty windows at the garden, yellowing like an uncut hayfield in the October sunshine.

They are a couple in love, and anyone but a fool would see it is simply that, nothing more- and certainly nothing less.

And still the bird sings as if to say that delight is easy, for those who desire it.

loving a woman and loving his child is enough

When we lay awake after making love I could hear the sleepy birds settling in their nests in the thatch. We had a little pallet bed, a table and two stools, a fireplace where we warmed up our dinner from the palace, and nothing more. We wanted nothing more.

I will try to remember this day, and you looking like a child, a little lost among all these clothes. I will try to remember that you were innocent of any plotting; that today at least, you were more a girl than a Boleyn." ?

He liked Washington, the "subdued elegance" of Sixteenth Street and the extravagance of Massachusetts Avenue, the simplicity of the monuments, the lack of pretension.

home lies in the things you carry with you everywhere and not the ones that tie you down.

In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.

In an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow. And in an age of distraction, nothing is so luxurious as paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.

I loved the quiet places in Kyoto, the places that held the world within a windless moment. Inside the temples, Nature held her breath. All longing was put to sleep in the stillness, and all was distilled into a clean simplicity. The smell of woodsmoke, the drift of incense; a procession of monks in black-and-gold robes, one of them giggling in a voice yet unbroken; a touch of autumn in the air, a sense of gathering rain.

not many years ago, it was access to information and movement that seemed our greatest luxury; nowadays it's often freedom from information, the chance to sit still, that feels like the ultimate prize.

Les vrais besoins ont une limite naturelle: nourriture, vêtements, abris, soins… Le superflu, lui, n'a pas de limite.