Best 133 quotes in «minimalism quotes» category

A big group of daily friends or a white painted house with bills and mirrors, are not a necessity to me—but an intelligent conversation while sharing another coffee, is.

Life's too short for minimalism.

Through Kurt I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down.

Minimalism is not defined by what is not there but by the rightness of what is and the richness with which this is experienced.

A minimalist does not charge you for what he did. He charges you for what he did not do.

Anything you use often, and which truly adds value to your life, is a welcome part of a minimalist household

Around 2 a.m. the snow started to fall. It was quite a lovely view and I breathed it in like I only do when I truly love something, and there was a small sadness creeping in through my chest because I knew I would have to leave it, go back to my basement with no stars in sight. But I pushed it aside because those moments are rare and I’m happy because now I know this place exists and that’s all you need sometimes. You need to know that lovely places exist and you can go there, when things go wrong, and it’s a place of solace.

Ask each item, "What are you and what do you do?" "How did you come into my life?" "Did I buy you, or were you given to me?" "How often do I use you?" "Would I replace you if you were lost or broken, or would I be relieved to be rid of you?" "Did I ever want you in the first place?" Be honest with your answers–you won't hurt your stuff's feelings

As an evil cultist, I make an excellent evil cultist. Only I'm stupid, and not evil. And I worship nothing, really.

Diamonds Are Not This Girl's Best Friend Diamonds are not my best friend but they used to be. It wasn't just jewelry but all the things I bought to lift me up, prove my worth, and demonstrate my love. As I became more and more me and started experiencing the world from this new stuff-less place, I realized that diamonds are not this girl's best friend. My best friend is a magical rooftop sunrise. My best friend is the ocean. My best friend is a hike in the mountains. My best friend is a peaceful afternoon. My best friend is a really good book. My best friend is laughter. My best friend is seeing the world. My best friend is time with people I love. Diamonds have nothing on my best friends.

As my energy changed and felt so much more free, open and exciting, new stuff started showing up. It became addictive — circulating energy. I stopped wearing my workout clothes every damn day. Working from home has its perks, but I was just dressing by default. There I was with a wardrobe full of clothes, yet I was wearing the same yoga pants, Jeaniius Tee, and hair scrunchie top knot every damn day. Time to wear the clothes I'd never worn, just because! I felt refreshed. Paying more attention to my clothes led to something else that shifted my energy level. I have always given away my clothes in bundles, because I just love the feeling of minimalism (and giving) but I was reaching a whole new level. I realized that every single thing in my home had its own energy-even my clothes. So if there was something sitting around that was not getting used or giving me any joy or excitement, it was time for it to go. I felt I had space for so many surprises to show up, and of course, they did.

As we examine our things with a critical eye, we may be surprised how much of it commemorates our past, represents our hopes for the future, or belongs to our imaginary selves. Unfortunately, devoting too much of our space, time and energy to these things keeps us from living in the present.

Digital minimalism definitively does not reject the innovations of the internet age, but instead rejects the way so many people currently engage with these tools.

A well-used minimum suffices for everything.

Because the best things in life aren't things

Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.

Be who you are, not who you wished to be.

Clearing clutter—be it physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual—brings about ease and inspires a sense of peace, calm, and tranquility.

Don't just declutter, de-own.

Do only what is necessary and required. Efficiency is elegant. Less is more.

For everything we say yes to, we're saying no to something else. ... As Bruce Lee once said, "It is not daily increase but daily decrease; hack away the unessential.

Do you think the wren ever dreams of a better house?

Finding peace of mind usually demands that we lose some things and some people.

For awhile, I was left with nothing on the physical plane. I had no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity. I spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy.

Have the courage to build your life around what is really most important to you.

Getting rich doesn't mean you will receive a special bonus and your days will become 25 hours long instead of 24.

Getting through life without a lot of money, possessions, and/or friends is admirable, especially if it is by choice.

How to Handle Gifts as a Minimalist. 1) Needs over wants 2) Quality over quantity 3) Experiences over possessions 4) Gift list as early as possible 5) Consumables over non consumables.

How much does he lack himself, he who must have many things?

I am a worried person with a stressed out soul, living a simple life with no capital.

I am not an optimist; I am afraid that I won't live long enough to escape my bondage to the machines.

If I had to own a car, I rather have a small one... A small trunk will constantly remind me to pack light and remain minimalist.

If we were all minimalists instead of conspicuous consumers, there would be less demand on the world’s resources and we’d have a smaller, less berserk economy. We’d be less likely to harm the only planet we’ll ever have, and the super-rich would have fewer ways to exploit us.

If you are already solving your problem with the equipment you have - a pencil, say- why solve it with something more expensive and more damaging? If you don't have a problem, why pay for a solution? If you love the freedom and elegance of simple toons, why encumber yourself with something complicated? And yet, if we are ever again going to have a world fit and pleasant for little children, we are surely going to have to draw the line where it is not easily drawn. We are going to have to learn to give up things that we have learned (in only a few years, after all) to 'need'.

If you cannot afford yourself any luxuries for the time being, at least offer yourself the one priceless luxury no one can take away from you – your time

If you have time, a lot of things are enjoyable. Making this type of woodblock, or collecting the wood for the fire, or even cleaning things - it's all enjoyable and satisfying if you give yourself time - Nakamura.

If you need nice things to impress your friends, you have the wrong friends.

I had bought things to tell people a story about who I was, or at least who I wanted them to think I was. By getting rid of those items I was taking back control of who I really was.

Imagining your ideal life success story is LESS about WHAT you want to do and MORE about WHO you want to become.

I'm an innate maximalist.

In my life, I've found that when I align my wants and my needs, less becomes more.

In our overcrowded homes today, most possessions are not truly “belongings.” They are only distracting us from the things that do belong.

I strive for simplicity and believe simplicity is beauty.

It is often the job of the advert to highlight the product’s strengths and the target audience’s weaknesses.

It’s 100% easier to increase your time and freedom by eliminating the dumb things you do every day than to try to be 100% more productive doing more dumb things.

It's better to have extra time on your hands and extra money in your pocket than extra stuff in your closet.

It's no accident that most ads are pitched to people in their 20s and 30s. Not only are they so much cuter than their elders...but they are less likely to have gone through the transformative process of cleaning out their deceased parents' stuff. Once you go through that, you can never look at *your* stuff in the same way. You start to look at your stuff a little postmortemistically. If you've lived more than two decades as an adult consumer, you probably have quite the accumulation, even if you're not a hoarder...I'm not saying I never buy stuff, because I absolutely do. Maybe I'm less naive about the joys of accumulation.

It’s one that is stripped of the unnecessary, to make room for that which gives you joy. It’s a removal of clutter in all its forms, leaving you with peace and freedom and lightness. A minimalist eschews the mindset of more, of acquiring and consuming and shopping, of bigger is better, of the burden of stuff. A minimalist instead embraces the beauty of less, the aesthetic of spareness, a life of contentedness in what we need and what makes us truly happy. A minimalist realizes that acquiring stuff doesn’t make us happy. That earning more and having more are meaningless. That filling your life with busy-ness and freneticism isn’t desirable, but something to be avoided. A minimalist values quality, not quantity, in all forms.

I used to think of work as a bad word. Back in the corporate world, work was something that prevented me from living, something that kept me from feeling satisfied or fulfilled or passionate. Even the word itself carried with it a negative connotation. Work—bluck! When I left the corporate world, I swore off the word altogether. Noun, verb, adjective—I avoided all of work’s iterations. I no longer ‘went to work,’ so that was easy to remove from my vocabulary. In fact, I no longer ‘worked’ at all; instead I replaced the word with a more specific verb: I would ‘write’ or ‘teach’ or ‘speak’ or ‘volunteer,’ but I refused to ‘work.’ I no longer went to the gym to ‘workout’; instead I ‘exercised.’ And I stopped wearing ‘work clothes’; I chose instead to wear ‘dress clothes.’ And I avoided getting ‘worked up,’ preferring to call it ‘stress’ or ‘anxiety.’ And I didn’t bring my car to the shop to get ‘worked on,’ deciding instead to have my vehicle ‘repaired.’ Hell, I even avoided ‘handiwork’ 92 and ‘housework,’ selecting their more banal alternatives. Suffice it to say, I wanted nothing to do with the word. I wanted it not only stricken from my lexicon, but from my memory, erasing every shred of the thing that kept me from pursuing my dream for over a decade. But after a year of that nonsense, I realized something: it wasn’t the word that was bad; it was the meaning I gave to the word. It took removing the word from my everyday speech for a year to discover that it wasn’t a bad word at all. During that year, I had been pursuing my dream, and guess what—when I looked over my shoulder at everything I’d accomplished, I realized that pursuing my dream was, in fact, a lot of work. It took a lot of work to grow a website. It took a lot of work to publish five books. It took a lot of work to embark on a coast-to-coast tour. It took a lot of work to teach my first writing class. It took a lot of work to pursue my dream. Work wasn’t the problem. What I did as my work was the problem. I wasn’t passionate about my work before—my work wasn’t my mission—and so I wanted to escape from work so I could live a more rewarding life, looking to balance out the tedium of the daily grind. But work and life don’t work that way. Even when you’re pursuing your dream, there will be times of boredom and stress and long stretches of drudgery. That’s alright. It’s all worth it in the end. When your work becomes your life’s mission, you no longer need a work-life balance.

Declutter your mind, your heart, your home. Let go of the heaviness that is weighing you down. Make your life simple, but significant.