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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Henry David Thoreau2 quotes
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Seneca2 quotes
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. — Seneca · 65No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have. — Seneca · 65Socrates2 quotes
Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods. — Socrates · 240How many things I can do without! — Socrates · 399 BCAlbert Einstein1 quote
Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury—to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind. — Albert Einstein · 1931Aristotle1 quote
It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it. The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more. — Aristotle · 350 BCArthur Charles Erickson1 quote
North American civilization is one of the ugliest to have emerged in human history, and it has engulfed the world. Asphalt and exhaust fumes clog the villages... This great, though disastrous, culture can only change as we begin to stand off and see... The inveterate materialism which has become the model for cultures around the globe. — Arthur Charles Erickson · 1973William Wordsworth1 quote
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! — William Wordsworth · 1807