Quotes about Simplicity

I have found therapy to be of limited usefulness, constrained in ways that religion is not, because it consistently falls short of mystery, by which I mean a profound simplicity that allows for paradox and poetry. In therapy I am likely to be searching for explanations, causes, and definitions, information that will help me change my behavior in healthful ways. But wisdom is the goal of spiritual seeking, and it is religion's true home.

Many things — such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly — are done worst when we try hardest to do them.

They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.

Why did they have so many clothes, anyway? Life was so much easier in India, where a boy needed only a pair of shorts.

Plainness has its peculiar temptations quite as much as beauty.

Animals are such agreeable friends?they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

But I don't want more things than I need, either.

Because I have time to spare, and for the first time in my life nobody expects anything of me. I don't have to prove anything. I'm not rushing anywhere; each day is a gift I enjoy to the fullest.

The wise man desires nothing; he does not judge, he makes no plans, he keeps his mind open and his

People come and go, and even the closest members of the family eventually disperse. It's useless to cling to anybody or anything because everything in the universe tends toward separation, chaos, and entropy, not cohesion. I have chosen a simpler life, with fewer material things and more leisure, fewer worries and more fun, fewer social commitments and more true friendship, less fuss and more silence.

I'm fine here, Lenny. I'm discovering who I am without all my ornaments and accessories. It's quite a slow process, but a very useful one. Everybody ought to do the same at the end of their life. If I had any self-discipline I would beat my grandson to it and write my own memoirs. I have time, freedom, and silence, the three things I never had amidst all the noise of my earlier life. I'm preparing to die.

Take nothing for granted as beautiful or ugly, but take every building to pieces, and challenge every feature. Learn to distinguish the curious from the beautiful. Get the habit of analysis - analysis will in time enable synthesis to become your habit of mind. 'Think simples' as my old master used to say - meaning to reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles.