These individuals have riches just as we say that we "have a fever,"
When really the fever has us.
-Seneca

He who knows he has enough
Is rich.
-Lao Tzu

A person is rich
In proportion to the number of things
He can afford to let alone.
-Henry David Thoreau

I, for one, do not want a whole attic full of possessions
Attaching themselves to me.
Rather, I want the mobility to be able to explore all things,
The mobility that a closet full of shoes
And complete leather bound works of Shakespeare cannot give.
-Linda Konner

It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.
-William of Occam, Occam's razor

Busyness is a form of mental laziness:
Sloppy thinking and indiscriminate action.
-Tim Ferris

The more we have the less we own.
-Meister Eckhart

One gains by losing and loses by gaining.
-Tao Te Ching

Always bear this in mind:
Very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.
-Marcus Aurelius

For the love of money is the root of all evil.
-I Timothy 6:10

It is not "money" that is the "root of all evil," as we often misquote,
But "the love of money."
-Bruce Barton

Too few know when they have enough;
And fewer know how to employ it.
-William Penn

Our houses are so much our tombs,
That a man might write our epitaphs upon our very doors.
-Seneca

Reflect how many hazards you have ventured for the sake of money.
You must dare something to gain leisure, also.
-Seneca

Quotes about Simplicity, continued

Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without.
-Quaker Proverb

I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy,
But most terribly impoverished class of all,
Who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it,
And thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.
-Henry David Thoreau

Civilization, in the real sense of the term, consists not in multiplication,
But in a deliberate and voluntary reduction of wants.
This alone promotes real happiness and contentment.
-Gandhi

Every dollar you spend is a vote.
-Tom Thompson

For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike,
Not to take thought for your persons in your properties,
But first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.
-Socrates, in Plato's Republic

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
I say, let your affairs be as two or three and not 100 or 1000;
Instead of 1 million count half a dozen,
And keep your accounts on your thumbnail.
-Thoreau

Thinking of sense objects, man becomes attached thereto.
From attachment arises longing and from longing anger is born.
From anger arises delusion;
From delusion, loss of memory is caused.
From loss of memory, the discriminative faculty is ruined
And from the ruin of discrimination, he perishes.
-Bhagavad-Gita, II: 60-63

Desires cannot be satisfied by fulfilling.
It grows more and more and there is no end of desires.
If a person becomes a king of the country he desires other countries.
But one who doesn't want to possess anything possesses everything.
The desires can be given up by understanding desires.
-Sri Baba Hari Dass

If consumers can no longer distinguish clearly between the real and the simulated,
If whole stretches of one's life may be commercially programmed,
We enter into a set of psycho-economic problems of breathtaking complexity.
These problems challenge our most fundamental beliefs,
Not merely about democracy,
But about the very nature of rationality sanity.
-Alvin Toffler

Why should you trouble yourself about the future?
You do not even properly know about the present.
Take care of the present, and future will take care of itself.
-Sri Ramana Maharshi