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

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.

He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.

The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don’t have.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means – either may do – the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.

Elegance is refusal.

Deficiency motivation doesn’t work. It will lead to a life-long pursuit of try to fix me. Learn to appreciate what you have and where and who you are.

I used to wonder if it was God’s plan that I should be alone for so much of my life. But I found peace. I found happiness within people and the world.

He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.

The greatest wealth is to live content with little.

For greed all nature is too little.

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

If you desire many things, many things will seem few.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money’s sake.

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

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.

True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.

When I was a child, I was very poor and wanted everything. So when I got money, I began buying things.

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.

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

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

Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.

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.

Like so many American families, our families weren’t asking for much. They didn’t begrudge anyone else’s success or care that others had much more than they did… in fact, they admired it.

Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessities.

What’s real freedom? Real freedom is being able to not have my way and still be just as happy as if I did.

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

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

I always was a rich person because money’s not related to happiness.

It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, – superfluous things that wear our togas theadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.

Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.

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.

The happiness and peace attained by those satisfied by the nectar of spiritual tranquillity is not attained by greedy persons restlessly moving here and there.

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

The simplification of anything is always sensational.

I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.

It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.

It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.

Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.

If someone has a really great boyfriend or career, I think, it’s cool that happens.

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

You may never get to that perfect world that you’re waiting for where everything’s going to be perfect and you got that much money and your house paid off.

The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

This happiness consisted of nothing else but the harmony of the few things around me with my own existence, a feeling of contentment and well-being that needed no changes and no intensification.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won’t make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa – and it’s about getting a balance.

Not necessity, not desire – no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything – health, food, a place to live, entertainment – they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.

Simplify, simplify.

Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

Well, we’re living in a material world, and I’m a material girl… or boy.

If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.

A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.

Happy the people whose annals are vacant.