A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.

There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.

Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.

Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.

But I was amazed at how organized the Palestinian election authority was, how competent they were in setting up their polling places and the poll workers they had.

The simplification of anything is always sensational.

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.

I hope that Facebook and other Internet technologies were able to help people, just like we hope that we help them communicate and organize and do whatever they want to every single day, but I don’t pretend that if Facebook didn’t exist, that this wouldn’t even be possible. Of course, it would have.

I’m not big on to-do lists. Instead, I use e-mail and desktop folders and my online calendar. So when I walk up to my desk, I can focus on the e-mails I’ve flagged and check the folders that are monitoring particular projects and particular blogs.

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

Simple goes a long way.

I believe that the whole idea of the consumer society is tottering. We’ve kept ourselves going by producing more and more goods, most of which people don’t need. I’m anti-consumerism; I own four pairs of black Levis and that’s it.

I’m not very gifted for hairdos. I don’t like gel and all those products.

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life.

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

That government is best which governs least.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

We are not the sum of our possessions.

The Tao teaches us to let go of things. Use the 80/20 rule. If you take all your clothes, you’ll find out that you only wear 20 percent of them. Take what you have and don’t use and circulate it. Give stuff to people who truly need it. After all, we come into this world with nothing; we leave this world with nothing.

It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.

There are people who are really good managers, people who can manage a big organization, and then there are people who are very analytic or focused on strategy. Those two types don’t usually tend to be in the same person. I would put myself much more in the latter camp.

One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.

A place for everything, everything in its place.

I have rooms full of little dongly things and don’t want any more. Half the little dongly things I’ve got, I don’t even know what gizmo they’re for. More importantly, half the gizmos I’ve got, I don’t know where their little dongly thing is.

Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.

I believe that every one of us has a gift. And I believe that mine is the ability to take the complex and make it simple.

I remember I used to sleep on my records. In a room with no furniture. I remember I used to sleep in my car.

Historically, the stuff of the universe goes on becoming concentrated into ever more organized forms of matter.

Every day is a major balancing act that I have to figure out and coordinate.

Men admire the man who can organize their wishes and thoughts in stone and wood and steel and brass.

Some people have a hard time getting rid of stuff. If that’s you, pray for God to give you the courage to get rid of things you don’t really need or things He wants you to give away. This will help keep your surroundings organized and clutter-free.

First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.

I’ve only wanted paper and beautiful colors. It was my dream, and it still is my dream. And books. They’re all I need, and the rest I can do without.

I think it is a good thing to buy less and choose well – it’s good for the environment and to be fair it’s also good for me because my clothes are quite expensive.

It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.

Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan.

Elegance is refusal.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

Order is heaven’s first law.

You can’t have a value structure without a hierarchy. They’re the same thing because a value structure means one thing takes precedence over another.

I’m generous. I give good tips. It’s just – the way I live my life, ironically enough, is: I don’t want anything. I’m not a consumer. I don’t crave objects.

Take the complications, rules, shoulds, musts, have tos, and so on out of your life. By uncomplicating your life and removing the trivial pursuits that occupy so much of it, you open a channel for the genius within you to emerge.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?

Through Kurt I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that’s stripped down.

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

3D is a way of organizing things, particularly as we’re getting much more media information on the computer, a lot more choices, a lot more navigation than we’ve ever had before.

Service of any type requires preparation.

Before beginning, plan carefully.

I love to clean.

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

Material things are delightful, but they’re not important.

If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.

Good order is the foundation of all things.

He has the most who is most content with the least.

You should not build your customer service system on the premise that your organisation will never question the whims of your clients.

Buy less. Choose well. Make it last. Quality, not quantity. Everybody’s buying far too many clothes.

I don’t care about money.