Minimalism is a culture that embraces the promotion of that which we love most followed by a simultaneous decrease in the stuff we do not need. A minimalist lifestyle goes against the norm of the modern consumerist lifestyle. It is all about living on bare essentials, decluttering your life, and ensuring that you only take what you need. A minimalist target to own only those items that are of great value and highly essential. In other words, clutter is eliminated by all means necessary.
Minimalism is thus a tool for helping humanity rid themselves of life’s excess in favor of focusing on what is really important in a bid to find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom. Let’s take a look at 121 ultimate quotes on minimalism that will inspire you to live a simpler life.
121 Ultimate Minimalist and Simplicity Quotes To Inspire You
1. I am a minimalist. I like saying the most with the least.
~ Bob Newh
2. The first step in crafting the life you want is to get rid of everything you don’t.
~ Joshua Becker
3. My goal is no longer to get more done, but rather to have less to do.
~ Francine Jay, Miss Minimalist: Inspiration to Downsize, Declutter, and Simplify
4. The more I buy stuff, the more I feel that I am wasting money on the resources that I actually don’t need. In fact, sometimes I feel that my house has totally become a junkyard cafe.
~ Rinkesh Kukreja, Founder – Conserve Energy Future
5. I’ve learned that minimalism is not about what you own, it’s about why you own it.
~ Brian Gardner
6. Fill your life with lost of experiences, not lots of things. Have incredible stories to tell, not incredible clutter in your closets.
~ MarcAndAngel
7. Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it.
~ Joshua Becker
8. The essence of philosophy is that we should live so that our happiness depends as little as possible on external causes.
~ Epictetus
9. There are two ways to be rich: One is by acquiring much, and the other is by desiring little.
~Jackie French Koller, 1948.
10. Having more and more won’t solve the problem, and happiness does not lie in possessions, or even relationships: The answer lies within ourselves. If we cant find peace and happiness there, it’s not going to come from the outside.
~ Tenzin Palmo
11. The intention of voluntary simplicity is not to dogmatically live with less. Its a more demanding intention of living with balance. This is a middle way that moves between the extremes of poverty and indulgence.
~Duane Elgin, 1940s.
12. We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy.
~Richard Foster, 1940s.
13. Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.
~ Albert Einstein
14. If one’s life is simple, contentment has to come. Simplicity is extremely important for happiness. Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have, is very vital: satisfaction with just enough food, clothing, and shelter to protect yourself from the elements.
~ The Dalai Lama
15. Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves.
~Edwin Way Teale
16. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
~Leonardo da Vinci
17. It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.
~Bertrand Russell
18. Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.
~ Will Rogers
19. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
~Henry David Thoreau
20. The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.
~Socrates
21. Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
~ William Morris
22. Many of those who have the most make only the least of what they have.
~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana
23. We go on multiplying our conveniences only to multiply our cares. We increase our possessions only to the enlargement of our anxieties.
~ Anna C. Brackett
24. More than the homeless, we have, not only money and possessions but also potential sources of things such as worry and unhappiness.
~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana
25. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.
~ Elise Boulding, 1920.
26. The simplest things are often the truest.
~ Richard Bach
27. The trouble with simple living is that, though it can be joyful, rich, and creative, it isnt simple.
~ Doris Janzen Longacre, 1940.
28. Simplicity is an acquired taste. Mankind, left free, instinctively complicates life.
~ Katharine Fullerton Gerould, 1879.
29. The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
~ Hans Hofmann
30. Purposefully owning less begins to take us out of the unwinnable game of comparison.
~ Joshua Becker
31. That’s been one of my mantras~focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
~ Steve Jobs
32. One can furnish a room very luxuriously by taking out furniture rather than putting it in.
~ Francis Jourdain, 1876.
33. Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.
~ Isaac Newton
34. There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
~ Leo Tolstoy, 1828.
35. Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.
~ Thomas Kempis
36. It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
~ Seneca, 1 BCE.
37. Simplicity is the glory of expression.
~ Walt Whitman
38. If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, then this is the best season of your life.
~ Wu~Men, 864.
39. Living with only the bare essentials has not only provided superficial benefits such as the pleasure of a tidy room or the simple ease of cleaning, it has also led to a more fundamental shift. It’s given me a chance to think about what it really means to be happy.”
~ Fumio Sasaki
40. The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise.
~ John the Baptist, 6 BCE
41. Be a curator of your life. Slowly cut things out until you’re left only with what you love, with what’s necessary, with what makes you happy.
~ Leo Babauta
42. Simplicity isn’t about being a cold, hard minimalist. A different way of looking at simplicity is to take note of the Japanese aesthetic of wabi sabi. It is difficult to translate it directly into a Western sensibility but it is a way of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature.
~ Amanda Talbot
43. Minimalism is just the beginning. Its a tool. Once you’ve gone ahead and minimized, its time to find out what those important things are.
~ Fumio Sasaki,
44. Minimalism is built around the idea that there’s nothing that you’re lacking.
~ Fumio Sasaki,
45. For everything we say yes to, were saying no to something else.
~ Ryder Carroll
46. Minimalism means not trying to improve perfection.
~ Bryant McGill
47. Minimalism is really about a reassessment of priorities, so you can remove unnecessary things from your life; get rid of things like possessions, activities, and relationships that do not improve or bring value to your life.
~ Jane Andrews,
48. The numerous choices you have around yourself are often superficial; they don’t matter. The art lies in doing more with less. Minimal requirements, more work.
~ Vishal Ostwal
49. Minimalism can help you find contentment and satisfaction and finally put meaning into your life. Just removing unnecessary things that do not bring any value to you will essentially open the door to a brand new perspective on living.
~ Jane Andrews,
50. Minimalism is the constant art of editing your life.
~ Danny Dover,
51. Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face. Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer of the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge.
~Bahaullah, 1817.
52. If we were all minimalists instead of conspicuous consumers, there would be less demand on the world’s resources and wed 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.
~ Robert Wringham
53. My riches consist, not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants.
~ Joseph Brotherton, 1783.
54. Want to know how to make yourself instantly unhappy? Compare yourself with someone else.
~ Fumio Sasaki
55. The best criterion for choosing what to keep and what to discard is whether keeping it will make you happy, whether it will bring you joy.
~ Marie Kondō
56. The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life.
~ Marie Kondō,
57. We go on multiplying our conveniences only to multiply our cares. We increase our possessions only to the enlargement of our anxieties.
~ Anna C. Brackett, 1836.
58. Sometimes, minimizing possessions means a dream must die. But this is not always a bad thing. Sometimes, it takes giving up the person we wanted to be in order to fully appreciate the person we can actually become.
~ Joshua Becker
59. Instead of trying to understand who we really are, we reach for the Real Thing. And when the goods we buy fail to match up to those deep desires, instead of giving up on material goods, we just keep banging our heads against the wall and buying more.
~ James Wallman
60. Some things cost way more when we keep them.
~ Neeraj Agnihotri
61. Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.
~ Epicurus, 341 BCE
62. If one had taken what is necessary to cover one’s needs and had left the rest to those who are in need, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, no one would be in need.
~ Saint Basil, 330
63. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
~ Henry David Thoreau, 1817
64. Minimalism is the pursuit of the essence of things, not the appearance.
~ Claudio Silvestrin
65. Clutter is caused by a failure to return things to where they belong. Therefore, storage should reduce the effort needed to put things away, not the effort needed to get them out.
~ Marie Kondō
66. Keep only those things that speak to your heart. Then take the plunge and discard all the rest. By doing this, you can reset your life and embark on a new lifestyle.
~ Marie Kondō
67. Minimalism is a tool we use to live a meaningful life. There are no rules. Rather, minimalism is simply about stripping away the unnecessary things in your life so you can focus on what’s important
~ Joshua Fields Millburn
68. Minimalism is a tool to eliminate life’s excess, focus on the essentials, and find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom.
~ Joshua Fields Millburn
69. It is important to note that we don’t think that sentimental items are bad or evil or that holding on to them is wrong. We don’t. Rather, we think the pernicious nature of sentimental items – and overt sentimentality in general – is far more subtle. If you want to get rid of an item but the only reason you are holding on to it is for sentimental reasons – if it is weighing on you, if its an anchor – then perhaps its time to get rid of it, perhaps it is time to free yourself of the weight.
~ Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus
70. The point is that minimalism is a tool to help you achieve freedom. Freedom from fear, freedom from worry, freedom from overwhelm, freedom from guilt, freedom from depression, freedom from enslavement. Freedom. Real freedom.
~ Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus
71. Ultimately, minimalism is the thing that gets us past the things so we can focus on lives most important things~which actually arent things at all.
~ Joshua Fields Millburn
72. Minimalists search for happiness not through things, but through life itself; thus, it’s up to you to determine what is necessary and what is superfluous to your life.
~ Joshua Fields Millburn,
73. The things you own end up owning you.
~ Joshua Fields Millburn
74. We’re living our life depending on the space we’ve got rather than creating our space to fit our lives.
~ Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus
75. … A home is a home for one reason: we call it home. The stuff doesn’t make it your home – you do.
~ Joshua Fields Millburn
76. We should be choosing what we want to keep, not what we want to get rid of.
~ Marie Kando
77. Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.
~ E.F. Schumacher, 1911
78. Through our long peace and seldom sickness…we are grown more populous than ever heretofore…many thousands of idle persons are within this realm, which, having no way to be sett on work, be either mutinous and seek alteration in the state, or at least very burdensome to the commonwealth.
~ Richard Hakluyt, writer (1527~1616)
79. We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy.
~ Richard Foster, 1940s.
80. Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter.
~ Harold Kushner, 1935
81. Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions,
~ Joshua Fields Millburn
82. We all know that possessions do not equal happiness. It’s just that we’ve been told this lie for so long that we start to believe it, our hearts start to buy into it, and it begins to affect the way we live our lives.
~ Joshua Fields Millburn
83. …success for me has little to do with money or possessions or status. Rather, success is a simple equation: Happiness + Growth + Contribution = Success.
That’s the only kind of success I know.
~ Joshua Fields Millburn
84. Our excessive possessions are not making us happy. Even worse, they are taking us away from the things that do. Once we let go of the things that don’t matter, we are free to pursue all the things that really do matter.
~ Joshua Becker,
85. Don’t just declutter, de~own.
~ Joshua Becker
86. Owning less is better than organizing more.
~ Joshua Becker
87. Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
~ William Morris, 1834.
88. My riches consist, not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants.
~ Joseph Brotherton, 1783.
89. …minimalism in the service of others is a logical extension of the same ethos of selflessness.
~ Joshua Becker,
90. With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures, and some books, I live without envy.
~ Lope de Vega, 1562.
91. I have my own definition of minimalism, which is that which is created with a minimum of means.
~ La Monte Young
92. It’s better to have extra time on your hands and extra money in your pocket than extra stuff in your closet.
~ Joshua Becker,
93. If you ask me what minimalism is really about, I would say that it’s the altering of values ~ enter the small doors of minimalism and come out on the other side with big ideas.
~ Fumio Sasaki
94. Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.
~ Steve Jobs
95. Declutter your mind, your heart, your home. Let go of the heaviness that is weighing you down. Make your life simple, but significant.
~ Maria Defillo
96. If you need nice things to impress your friends, you have the wrong friends.
~ Joshua Becker
97. Minimalism is not about having less. It’s about making room for more of what matters.
~ Melissa (Simple Lion Heart)
98. Holding on to things from the past is the same as clinging to an image of yourself in the past. If you’re the least bit interested in changing anything about yourself, I suggest you be brave and start letting things go.
~ Fumio Sasaki
99. The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.
~ Marie Kando
100. If one had taken what is necessary to cover one’s needs and had left the rest to those who are in need, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, no one would be in need.
~ Saint Basil
101. Truthfully, though, most organizing is nothing more than well~planned hoarding.
~ Joshua Fields Millburn
102. Minimalism is asking why before you buy.
~ Francine Jay
103. Generally speaking, our stuff can be divided into three categories: useful stuff, beautiful stuff, and emotional stuff.
~ Francine Jay
104. The more you have, the more you are occupied. The less you have, the more free you are.
~ Mother Teresa
105. Too many of us are over~committing to others and under~committing to ourselves. Let’s stop living at a frantic pace if our hearts are pulling us to a slower, more focused way of life. Let’s start honoring our own needs for rest, self~care, and balance. Let’s recommit to our own vision and finally listen to the voice inside.
~ Erica Layne
106. Our Memories are not in our things. Our memories are in us.
~ The Minimalists
107. When given too many choices, people tend to worry that there’s something better out there than what they decided on.
~ Fumio Sasaki
108. This is the beautiful secret of minimalism: It may seem like it’s about stuff, but once you’ve cut through the clutter and adopted a new frame of mind, you learn that it’s barely about the stuff at all.
~ Erica Layn
109. Anything you use often, and which truly adds value to your life, is a welcome part of a minimalist household
~ Francine Jay
110. The people who are rebelling meaningfully don’t buy a lot of stuff.
~ David Foster Wallace
111. There’s another benefit to a minimalist wardrobe. Because we choose items that are timeless, we don’t need to worry about being out of style.
~ Fumio Sasaki
112. 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.
~ Francine Jay
113. The intention of voluntary simplicity is not to dogmatically live with less. Its a more demanding intention of living with balance. This is a middle way that moves between the extremes of poverty and indulgence.
~ Duane Elgin
114. Clutter is not just the stuff on your floor – it’s anything that stands between you and the life you want to be living.
~ Peter Walsh
115. Holding on to things from the past is the same as clinging to an image of yourself in the past. If you’re the least bit interested in changing anything about yourself, I suggest you be brave and start letting things go.
~ Fumio Sasaki
116. More was never the answer. The answer, it turned out, was always less.
~ Cait Flanders
117. There are more things to gain from eliminating excess than you might imagine: time, space, freedom, and energy, for example.”
~ Fumio Sasaki
118. I’m a big believer in minimalism. Not materialist minimalism, although that’s part of it, but time and energy minimalism. The body is given only so much energy a day.”
~ James Altucher
119. Happiness is not having what you want. It is wanting what you have.
~ Rabbi Hyman Schachtel
120. Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
~ William Morris
121. have my own definition of minimalism, which is that which is created with a minimum of means.”
~ La Monte Young