Voluntary Simplicity Quotes

The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, 'If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.' Said [author:Diogenes|3213618, 'Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king".

None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.

Voluntary simplicity is at once joyous and altruistic. Joyous because it is not permanently plagued by the hunger for “more”; altruistic because it does not encourage the disproportionate concentration of resources in the hands of a few, resources which—were they to be spread evenly—would significantly improve the lives of those deprived of basic needs.

Tightwaddery without creativity is deprivation. When there is a lack of resourcefulness, inventiveness, and innovation, thrift means doing without. When creativity combines with thrift you may be doing it without money, but you are not doing without.

The relationship between ethics and thrift can be summed up in one sentence. It is wrong to save money at the expense of others. Period.

Satisfactions are fulfillment of the heart. Dissatisfactions are the rumblings of the mind.

Voluntary simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more.

To live sustainably, we must live efficiently - not misdirecting or squandering the earth's precious resources. To live efficiently, we must live peacefully for military expenditures represent an enormous diversion of resources from meeting basic human needs. To live peacefully, we must live with a reasonable degree of equity, or fairness, for it is unrealistic to think that, in a communications-rich world, a billion people will except living in absolute poverty while another billion live in conspicuous excess.

None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.... To be a philosopher is not mere to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.

It was a quiet revolution. Most downshifters dressed quite a bit like everyone else and lived in ordinary neighborhoods rather than communes or cabins in the woods. Seattle emerged as the nexus of voluntary simplicity as the growing tech industry-Microsoft's headquarters were there-made the city synonymous with the overworked, conspicuously consuming yuppie, while many other residents were still mixed in a lingering recession. The result was perhaps the most deliberate experiment in stopping shopping in modern times: a whole city in which the rejection of consumerism entered the mainstream. For nearly a decade, few aspects of daily life in Seattle were left unchanged by its shadow culture....For a few rare years, the consumer lifestyle was uncooled. 'We were sure in the '90s that we were the up-and-coming lifestyle choice,' Vicki Robin, coauthor of the downshifting classic 'Your Money or Your Life' told me....Then the global economy came roaring back to life, Seattle became better known for billionaires than plain living, and downshifting faded.

In some ways Duane Elgin’s Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich, published in 1981, was the first of these.

Voluntary simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more. It all ties in. It’s not a real option for me as a

Escaping capitalism typically involves avoiding politically engagement and certainly collectively organized efforts at changing the world. Especially today, escape is often an individualistic lifestyle strategy. And sometimes it is an individualistic strategy dependent on capitalist wealth, as in the stereotype of the successful Wall Street banker who decides to "give up the rat race" and move to Vermont to embrace a life of voluntary simplicity while living off a trust fund amassed from capitalist investments.

practice saying no to keep my life simple, and I find I never do it enough. It’s an arduous discipline all its own, and well worth the effort. Yet it is also tricky. There are needs and opportunities to which one must respond. A commitment to simplicity in the midst of the world is a delicate balancing act. It is always in need of retuning, further inquiry, attention. But I find the notion of voluntary simplicity keeps me mindful of what is important, of an ecology of mind and body and world in which everything is interconnected and every choice has far-reaching consequences. You don’t get to control it all. But choosing simplicity whenever possible adds to life an element of deepest freedom which so easily eludes us, and many opportunities to discover that less may actually be more.

Simplicity is a complex concept, but at the core is voluntary limitation of our outer wealth so that we can have greater inner wealth.

The time is ripe for confronting consumption. Not only are ecological problems like climate change more pressing than ever, consumerism has lost some of its allure in its North American epicenter. A majority of Americans already feel that their quality of life is suffering because of overemphasis on work and material gain. Encroachment of work and shopping on leisure time has millions of people searching for ways to restore balance in their lives—through lifestyles that trade money for time, commercialism for community, and things for joy. These people—”downshifters” or practitioners of “voluntary simplicity”—may one day attract the majority to their way of life by demonstrating that less stuff can mean more happiness. A North America that prospers without overusing the Earth—a sustainable North America—is entirely possible. All the pieces of the puzzle—from bike- and transit-friendly cities to sustainable farms to low-impact lifestyles—exist, scattered all over the continent. All that remains is for us to do the work of putting the pieces together.