Quotes about Simplicity

Details are always vulgar

We all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little.

He has a simple and a beautiful nature...Don't spoil him. Don't try to influence him. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide, and has many marvellous people in it. Don't take away from me the one person who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses: my life as an artist depends on him.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. 

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.  Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility! Jack.  That wouldn't be at all a bad thing. Algernon.  Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow.  Don't try it.  You should leave that to people who haven't been at a University.  They do it so well in the daily papers. 

One night a century ago, when a screech owl was screeching in the woods along the shores of Walden Pond, Henry Thoreau dipped his goose quill into his homemade ink and wrote in his diary: "The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life, which is required to be exchanged for it immediately or in the long run.

The command is Do no work. Just make space. Attend to what is around you. Learn that you don't have to DO to BE. Accept the grace of doing nothing. Stay with it until you stop jerking and squirming.

To be simple, humble, and thoughtful as we listen to others and help them come to faith in the One who has given us life.

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.

At 46 one must be a miser; only have time for essentials.

I knew a man who, in the age of chain-saws, went right on cutting his wood with a handsaw and an axe. He was a healthier and a saner man than I am. I shall let his memory trouble my thoughts.

Wendell Berry's formula for a good life and a good community is simple and pleasingly unoriginal. Slow down. Pay attention. Do good work. Love your neighbours. Love your place. Stay in your place. Settle for less, enjoy it more.