Category: BEST OF

  • I say these things, and shall not cease saying them, causing continual pain and dressing the wounds. And this is done not for the sake of the fallen, but of those who are still standing. For they have departed, and their career is ended, but those who are yet standing have gained a more secure position through their calamities. What then, you say, shall we do? Do one thing only, hate riches, and love your life— cast away your goods; I do not say all of them, but cut off the superfluities. 

    Saint John Chrysostom, On the Vanity of Riches
    HOMILY Two
    After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive

  • “Comfort is not one of my interests. You can feel comfortable in any environment that’s beautiful.”

    —Philip Johnson

    The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism
    Kyle Chayka

  • “What we’re often really craving is not the thing that we desire, but the reprieve we feel once we have relieved ourselves from the yearning of desire.”

    —Kass Sarll

  • “And remember: If you want maximum artistic freedom, keep your overhead low. A free creative life is not about living within your means, it’s about living below your means.”

    —Austin Kleon, Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad

  • “People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used.”

    — Emmanuel Torres

  • “If every man took only what was sufficient for his needs, leaving the rest to those in want, there would be no rich and no poor.”

    —St. Basil the Great

  • Think of the life energy expended in the ownership of a single possession: planning for it, reading reviews about it, looking for the best deal on it, earning (or borrowing) the money to buy it, going to the store to purchase it, transporting it home, finding a place to put it, learning how to use it, cleaning it (or cleaning around it), maintaining it, buying extra parts for it, insuring it, protecting it, trying not to break it, fixing it when you do, and sometimes making payments on it even after you’ve disposed of it. Now multiply this by the number of items in your home.

    The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide: How to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify Your Life
    Francine Jay

  • When we open a closet full of things, instead of feeing thankful that we have what we need, we feel stressed because we see a need to organize. How tragic! Owning fewer material items actually makes it easier to be thankful for what we have. When we have less stuff, we somehow appreciate the stuff we do have more.

    Invite Delight
    Evelyn Rennich

  • Pull any item off a retail shelf, carry it to the corrals of cash registers, and you can exchange the money you’ve earned to bring the thing home with you.

    But the true cost of a thing goes well beyond the price on the pricetag.

    The cost of…
    Storing the thing.
    Maintaining the thing.
    Cleaning the thing.
    Watering the thing.
    Feeding the thing.
    Charging the thing.
    Accessorizing the thing.
    Refueling the thing.
    Changing the oil of thing.
    Replacing the batteries of the thing.
    Fixing the thing.
    Repainting the thing.
    Taking care of the thing.
    Thinking about the thing.
    Worrying about the thing.
    Protecting the thing.
    Replacing the thing.

    When you add it all up, the actual cost of owning a thing is nearly immeasurable. So we better choose carefully what things we bring into our lives, because we can’t afford every-thing.

    The Actual Cost of Owning a Thing
    The Minimalists

  • But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

    —George Eliot, Middlemarch