• In giving, one is released from the burden of the items one has, whereas the one who takes adds items to items. The major problem is when a person possesses items that he does not use, only to set them aside. I do not want to be harsh with anyone, but I need to tell you that you will give an account of every item in your house that you do not use and is only set aside.

    There might be a person who is in need of it. What is even worse than having unused items in your house, is allowing them to stay in your house until they are ruined and neither you nor anyone else was able to use them. For example, consider a person who holds on to a few extra clothes beyond need, until they are eaten by moth and neither he nor anyone else has benefitted from them.

    H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Monastic Treasures for All of Us

  • “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

  • There are things which a person only needs to use once before being able to dispense with them. So what prevents him from giving whatever it is to others, so that they can benefit from it? He has nothing to lose by it!

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Experiences in Life

  • He was made miserable by abundance, wretched by the good things he possessed, and still more wretched by the good things he still expected to receive.

    —St. Basil the Great, On Social Justice

  • “For while there is nothing so desirable that it does not become loathsome through continual enjoyment, what is taken rarely is enjoyed quite eagerly.”

    —St. Basil the Great, On Fasting and Feasts

  • “The antidote, then, isn’t to simply abstain from everything. Abstinence alone leaves a void. Rather, we must walk toward the activities that provide purpose in our daily lives—creativity, community, contribution—to walk away from our vices.”

    Crisis of Meaning
    The Minimalists

  • “The more you evolve into the best version of yourself, the more you’ll be required to give up.”

    —Anthony Moore, Living an Extraordinary Life Means Giving Up a Normal One

  • He uses two basic cameras—one digital, one film—without a zoom. “That simplifies things already,” he said.

    Michel Houellebecq, the Photographer

  • “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

  • Be simple, and firm in your simplicity. “The fashion of this world passeth away.” (1 Cor. vii. 31.) We shall vanish with it, if we make ourselves like it by reason of vanity; but the truth of God remains forever, and we shall dwell with it if it alone occupies our attention.

    —François Fénelon, Spiritual Progress