Quotes about Simplicity

The main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things.

No, I'm not wealthy.

The Tao teaches us to let go of things. Use the 80/20 rule. If you take all your clothes, you'll find out that you only wear 20 percent of them. Take what you have and don't use and circulate it. Give stuff to people who truly need it. After all, we come into this world with nothing; we leave this world with nothing.

Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor.

Holy poverty confounds cupidity and avarice and the cares of this world.

Make your creed simply and broadly out of the revelation of God, and you will keep it to the end.

It takes these very simple-minded instructions - 'Go fetch a number, add it to this number, put the result there, perceive if it's greater than this other number' - but executes them at a rate of, let's say, 1,000,000 per second. At 1,000,000 per second, the results appear to be magic.

Sometimes the most profound experiences of our lives start with an act so simple and careless that we hardly think about it - like tossing a small stone that causes a massive avalanche.

I have come to believe that the defining moments of most lives are not acts of courage or greatness, rather they are the simple acts: expressions of virtue or vice that are tossed carelessly like seeds from a farmer's hand, leaving their fruits to be revealed at a future date.

Jesus said, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes" (Matthew 11:25). Why would this be? I believe that God desires that His message not be perverted, this message which has eternal significance. Intellectuals are seldom capable of conveying a message just as they have received it, without giving it a personal twist; whereas the simple, ignorant people transmit it faithfully.

It's possible to have emptied your savings account and be living in your friend's basement riding your bike everywhere because you can't afford a car and yet feel like you're bursting with vitality. It's also possible to have lots of money in the bank, living in the house you had custom built, going on expensive vacations to exotic places, and yet you're miserable.

But maybe all of these questions are missing the point. Let's set aside all of the saying and doing and being and cutting holes in roofs and assume it's more simple than that. As some would say, "Just believe.