Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.

What I’m always trying to say to the consumer is: buy less, choose well, make it last.

For greed all nature is too little.

Elegance is refusal.

Generosity is nothing else than a craze to possess. All which I abandon, all which I give, I enjoy in a higher manner through the fact that I give it away. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives.

Seemingly, man has learned to live without God, preoccupied and indifferent toward Him and concerned only about material security and pleasure.

It seems like a lot of people seek their peace in things. And most of us are not even satisfied with the things we have… we always want more.

It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.

Within one’s own family, money is not the measure of things, unless the person is an absolute Scrooge. Only the most extreme kind of monster would put a price on everything.

The simplification of anything is always sensational.

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

What consumerism really is, at its worst is getting people to buy things that don’t actually improve their lives.

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

Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money.

Simple goes a long way.

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

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

We are not the sum of our possessions.

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

The great question of our time is, ‚Will we be motivated by materialistic philosophy or by spiritual power?‘

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

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.

If you can’t eat it, shoot it, or wear it, don’t bring it.

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.

Well, capitalism is a big problem, because with capitalism you’re just going to keep buying and selling things until there’s nothing else to buy and sell, which means gobbling up the planet.

We only need so much to survive, but this world we live in tells us we need more stuff to be happy. We’re inundated with our televisions, the Internet and advertising that says in order to be happy you have to have these things. When you say, ‚Gimme, gimme, gimme,‘ you will always be in short supply.

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

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

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.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

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.

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

Somehow, we have come to the erroneous belief that we are all but flesh, blood, and bones, and that’s all. So we direct our values to material things.

I think some people would love to be able to make the clothes I make – and of course, I do influence them, but they keep simplifying, and minimalism doesn’t quite work.

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.

Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.

The greatest wealth is to live content with little.

I want to destroy ownership in order that possession and enjoyment may be raised to the highest point in every section of the community.

The will is a beast of burden. If God mounts it, it wishes and goes as God wills; if Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan wills; Nor can it choose its rider… the riders contend for its possession.

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends… Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

What is thine is mine, and all mine is thine.

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

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

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.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.

I spend a lot of time just, you know, with my girlfriend and my dog. And I mean, we don’t have a lot of furniture in our house, so it’s really simple. And we’re trying to build products for everyone in the world, right. And you don’t want to get isolated to do that.

It’s no secret that in New York during the last 30 years there has been a tragic exodus from the churches into materialism, secularism and humanism.

It is good to be tired and wearied by the futile search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer.

He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.

There’s nothing – I’ve bought everything I want. I don’t like yachts or anything; you know, I’m not a yacht person, and I’ve got pretty much the nicest plane I’d want to have.

Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.

I just love to shop. If I could, I would shop every single day in every single store and spend all of my money which, you know, I do anyway.

Simplify, simplify.

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

There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men.

Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.