Minimalism Quotes

I strive for simplicity and believe simplicity is beauty. ~ Allan Alder

You sell off the kingdom piece by piece and trade it for a horse that will take you anywhere. ~ Colin Wright

Minimalism wasn't a real idea - it ended before it started. ~ Sol LeWitt

Owning less is better than organizing more. ~ Joshua Becker

A need is something that is required to keep you alive. A want is something that you think is required to make or keep you happy. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified. ~ William James

What does it mean when you hook up your work to that of a late modernist giant working in a reductive vein - Ad Reinhardt, Agnes Martin, Robert Ryman, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, or Donald Judd, for example - like a caboose? I am not talking about engaging directly with another artist's work or ideas, but of perpetuating a look or, in the case of Wade Guyton, the various monochromatic, striped and geometric surfaces we associate with Minimalism. ~ John Yau

In our overcrowded homes today, most possessions are not truly "belongings." They are only distracting us from the things that do belong. ~ Joshua Becker

Generally speaking, our stuff can be divided into three categories: useful stuff, beautiful stuff, and emotional stuff. ~ Francine Jay

Reduction is the least observed of the three R's of environmentalism ('reduce, reuse, recycle') but it's probably the most important. Reuse and recycling are sensible measures in an over-productive society, but why not neutralise the problem of overproduction at the source? Instead of choosing to act efficiently at the end of a product's life cycle by reusing or recycling it, we should stop said product from being made in the first place by eliminating consumer demand for it. If the rainforests must be burned and the oceans poisoned to cater for the essentials of human life, then so be it and we'll call it an inevitable pity; but for that to happen in the name of games consoles, cell phones and chocolate fountains is a wanton and avoidable shame. ~ Robert Wringham

Minimalism has a connotation of being reductive, and not in the best way. 'Brevetist' is a better term. I'm trying to be as concise as possible and still getting across to the reader. When information is delivered in that way, it is very satisfying to me. ~ Susan Minot

My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated. ~ Abbas Kiarostami

Minimalism is the constant art of editing your life. ~ Danny Dover

Pretty much all wealthy people who were willing to lose and have lost their health while chasing wealth are now willing to lose their wealth while chasing health. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Clutter may rob us of the life we imagined or prevent us from creating a new vision for our future. ~ Lisa J. Shultz

Simplicity and serenity are close friends of minimalism. ~ Karen Alexander

The Ideal
This is where I came from.
I passed this way.
This should not be shameful
Or hard to say.
A self is a self.
It is not a screen.
A person should respect
What he has been.
This is my past
Which I shall not discard.
This is the ideal.
This is hard. ~ James Fenton

Minimalism is saying all by saying nothing. ~ Will Advise

As an evil cultist, I make an excellent evil cultist. Only I'm stupid, and not evil. And I worship nothing, really. ~ Will Advise

Out of calmness comes clarity. ~ Trevor Carss

Paradoxically, minimalism is the maximum use of space. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

No matter how brilliant, amusing or intelligent the creek of abstraction, Dadaism, Minimalism and Conceptualism of the 20th century was, it didn't much affect the historical river of figuration. I predict that in 50 years and in 300 years, figurative art will still be strong and important. ~ Mark Kostabi

Whenever we buy something we do not need, we waste not only money but also time. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

If you cannot afford yourself any luxuries for the time being, at least offer yourself the one priceless luxury no one can take away from you – your time ~ Lauren Klarfeld

A great principle of minimalism is using the minimum amount of resources, which accords perfectly with our present-day need for sustainability. ~ Prem Jagyasi

It is important to note that we don't think that sentimental items are bad or evil or that holding on to them is wrong. We don't. Rather, we think the pernicious nature of sentimental items – and overt sentimentality in general – is far more subtle. If you want to get rid of an item but the only reason you are holding on to it is for sentimental reasons – if it is weighing on you, if it's an anchor – then perhaps it's time to get rid of it, perhaps it is time to free yourself of the weight. ~ Joshua Fields Millburn

Write that novel, sail that boat. And if you can't, immerse yourself in the fantasy, be the ultimate dabbler, just enjoy what it is you enjoy. It'll help you get well if you're going to get well, and it'll help you sail that great boat in the sky if that's what's going to happen. Onwards and Upwards. No regrets. ~ Meg Wolfe

Minimalism is not defined by what is not there but by the rightness of what is
and the richness with which this is experienced. ~ John Pawson

Be mindful and prevent possible conflict surrounding your belongings. Aging often produces a waning of energy, and sadly, not all of us will maintain a sound mind. Possible disability, mental or physical, can relegate sorting and dispersing one's belongings to someone else who might not want the job. ~ Lisa J. Shultz

I think minimalism is something I just got attracted to just in general because I like the empty space, if you think about it, like there's a lot of empty space. So there are sounds there, there are chords, like coordinates, to sort of tell you where the emotion is going, but then it leaves so much room for the voice to do other things. ~ Pharrell Williams

Minimalism in the service of others is a logical extension of the same ethos of selflessness. ~ Joshua Becker

Life is a contradiction. Minimalism and in its simplicity opens the door to complicated analysis not just to dust free spaces. ~ Rohan Chalmers

Your home is living space, not storage space. ~ Francine Jay

When you absolutely trust someone, you are open, you are the real you, which fosters the closest possible relationship. Trust breeds more trust, which encourages habitual honestly from both parties. ~ Joshua Fields Millburn

Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly. It's your masterpiece after all. ~ Nathan W. Morris

The easiest way to be accused of being a hypocrite is to become a minimalist. No matter how much you have, you can always live with less. That makes minimalism easy to dismiss. It also means that you do not make the choice to become a minimalist once, but instead make it over and over again, slowly freeing yourself of more and more possessions. ~ Ashley Riordan

The problem: we put more value on our stuff than on our space ~ Francine Jay

We all have a million things vying for our attention. If you tell yourself that you don't have enough time to clear out your junk, you might be delaying the well-being and relief you could experience by tackling it. If not now, when? ~ Lisa J. Shultz

Hemingway's minimalism is based on the psychological mechanics of repression. An echo of his approach can be detected in a favorite trope of 1980s minimalists: a pattern of reference to dire secrets and hidden wounds these authors didn't realize they were supposed to have imagined. ~ Madison Smartt Bell

I used to think of work as a bad word. Back in the corporate world, work was something that prevented me from living, something that kept me from feeling satisfied or fulfilled or passionate. Even the word itself carried with it a negative connotation. Work - bluck! When I left the corporate world, I swore off the word altogether. Noun, verb, adjective - I avoided all of work's iterations. I no longer 'went to work,' so that was easy to remove from my vocabulary. In fact, I no longer 'worked' at all; instead I replaced the word with a more specific verb: I would 'write' or 'teach' or 'speak' or 'volunteer,' but I refused to 'work.' I no longer went to the gym to 'workout'; instead I 'exercised.' And I stopped wearing 'work clothes'; I chose instead to wear 'dress clothes.' And I avoided getting 'worked up,' preferring to call it 'stress' or 'anxiety.' And I didn't bring my car to the shop to get 'worked on,' deciding instead to have my vehicle 'repaired.' Hell, I even avoided 'handiwork' 92 and 'housework,' selecting their more banal alternatives. Suffice it to say, I wanted nothing to do with the word. I wanted it not only stricken from my lexicon, but from my memory, erasing every shred of the thing that kept me from pursuing my dream for over a decade. But after a year of that nonsense, I realized something: it wasn't the word that was bad; it was the meaning I gave to the word. It took removing the word from my everyday speech for a year to discover that it wasn't a bad w ~ Joshua Fields Millburn

How to Handle Gifts as a Minimalist.

1) Needs over wants
2) Quality over quantity
3) Experiences over possessions
4) Gift list as early as possible
5) Consumables over non consumables. ~ Joshua Becker

Minimalism is an attitude. It is the intention to keep the things that are of true value to you and to get rid of those that distract you from them. This attitude eventually becomes a way of life and is embodied in all aspects of your existence. Letting ~ Joshua Cole

Face-to-face conversation is the most human--and humanizing--thing we do. Fully present to one another, we learn to listen. It's where we develop the capacity for empathy. It's where we experience the joy of being heard, of being understood. ~ Cal Newport

If you're not using the stuff in your home, get rid of it. You're not going to start using it more by shoving it in a closet somewhere. ~ Joshua Becker

Minimizing can be exhilarating. If you continue decluttering, you just might find a zest for life that you didn't know existed under all that stuff! ~ Lisa J. Shultz

A big group of daily friends or a white painted house with bills and mirrors, are not a necessity to me - but an intelligent conversation while sharing another coffee, is. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

This neo-minimalism super cold stuff is weird to me. I need a place where I can come home and take my shoes off. ~ Frank Gehry

Post-minimalism implies music that's genre-less. Minimalism was very important because it came at a time when contemporary music had become so complex, so experimental and detached that people turned away from it. Minimalism broke that trend and brought music back to the people. ~ Maya Beiser

What is your heart worth?
What about your time?
What holds your heart, holds your attention.
What holds your attention, holds your time.
What holds your time, holds your life.
And if it's possessions that holds these things,
It will demand it all. ~ Eric Overby

Minimalism is, in its essence, about getting rid of the negative and non-essential, so that you may focus more on the positive and important. ~ Thomas Hilmersen

Make art and live simply. ~ Shawn Lukas

Minimalism is not a lack of something. It's simply the perfect amount of something. ~ Nicholas Burroughs

Useless and precious objects. Taking up space. Taking up time. ~ Maira Kalman

...you need to assess what you love right now and what is authntic to your way of living in this season of life. ~ Melissa Michaels

Ask each item, "What are you and what do you do?" "How did you come into my life?" "Did I buy you, or were you given to me?" "How often do I use you?" "Would I replace you if you were lost or broken, or would I be relieved to be rid of you?" "Did I ever want you in the first place?" Be honest with your answers–you won't hurt your stuff's feelings ~ Francine Jay

I'm an innate maximalist. ~ David Mitchell

The second best thing to not chasing success is chasing success that was defined by you, not for you. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Often more connections can mean greater distance. ~ Freequill

Some things are good for our image but bad for our pockets. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

*feels nothing* minimalism ~ Unknown

If the '80s were about Christian Lacroix ball gowns, the '90s give us wealthy women who either go to work or pretend to, and want office suits or slip dresses they can wear to dinner parties - ergo, the minimalism of Prada, Jil Sander, and others. But this is minimalism that comes at maximal prices. ~ Michael Shnayerson

Some things cost way more when we keep them. ~ Neeraj Agnihotri

Reduce what you have. Decrease what you want. ~ Jonathan Star

Minimalism is the new extra mile. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The more we gave up, the more we gained. ~ Courtney Ellis

Sometimes, minimizing possessions means a dream must die. But this is not always a bad thing. Sometimes, it takes giving up the person we wanted to be in order to fully appreciate the person we can actually become. ~ Joshua Becker

I was lucky to be born during the time of minimalism. I think I can be colder because of this. In form I speak with minimalism but my feeling is sentimental - I am a sentimental minimalist. ~ Christian Boltanski

The typical person saw over 5,000 advertisements yesterday telling them to buy something new.

Here's 1 with the opposite message: Buy Less. ~ Joshua Becker

For me, minimalism is about getting rid of unnecessary clutter (in all areas of life!), organizing what is left, and living in a peaceful, contented state, devoid of the extra stress that too much baggage brings to your life. ~ Kristen D. Smith

Minimalism is really about reassessment of priorities, so you can remove unnecessary thigns from your life; get rid of things like possessions, activities, and relationships that do not improve or bring value to your life. ~ Jane Andrews

Procrasdemon makes you waste your time on things that do not add value to your life. ~ Neeraj Agnihotri

Digital minimalism definitively does not reject the innovations of the internet age, but instead rejects the way so many people currently engage with these tools. ~ Cal Newport

This is today! What will tomorrow bring? Life arrives and departs on its own schedule, not ours; it's time to travel light, and be ready to go wherever it takes us. ~ Meg Wolfe

There's a particular style that is very Peru that you don't see anywhere else; it's got so many different imprints. When you mix Incan minimalism with the heavy, ornate Spanish Baroque, it is very interesting. ~ Mario Testino

Life's too short for minimalism. ~ Sophie Kinsella

Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of anything that distracts us from it. ~ Joshua Becker

I am a minimalist. I like saying the most with the least. ~ Bob Newhart

One can furnish a room very luxuriously by taking out furniture rather than putting it in. ~ Francis Jourdain

Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter. ~ Harold S. Kushner

Minimalism means not trying to improve perfection. ~ Bryant McGill

If you have time, a lot of things are enjoyable. Making this type of woodblock, or collecting the wood for the fire, or even cleaning things - it's all enjoyable and satisfying if you give yourself time - Nakamura. ~ Andy Couturier

The minimum could be defined as the perfection that an artefact achieves when it is no longer possible to improve it by subtraction. This is the quality that an object has when every component, every detail, and every junction has been reduced or condensed to the essentials. it is the result of the omission of the inessentials. ~ John Pawson

Instead of thinking I am losing something when I clear clutter, I dwell on what I might gain. ~ Lisa J. Shultz

Clearing clutter - be it physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual - brings about ease and inspires a sense of peace, calm, and tranquility. ~ Laurie Buchanan

When I own less, fewer things go wrong and need to be fixed. I have more space: openings in my calendar, room in my home, and calm in my heart. ~ Lisa J. Shultz

Who could justify trading a lifetime of stress and backbreaking labor for better blinds? Is a nicer-looking window treatment really worth so much of your life? ~ Cal Newport

Good food, fresh water, and an occasional sweet and someone to care for. That's what everyone should have. A simplistic and unrealistic view I knew, but it soothed me. ~ Maria V. Snyder

Minimalism had to be born, not out of a mere spur-of-the-moment idea or yearning for a new lifestyle, but from an earnest desire and fervent need to rethink our lives. ~ Fumio Sasaki

KISS: Keep it smart = simple. ~ Selim Tolga

I've found that the less stuff I own, the less my stuff owns me. ~ Nathan W. Morris

Have the courage to build your life around what is really most important to you. ~ Joshua Becker

Fashion is meant to be wild and expressive. I love colour but I also love basics - grungy minimalism mixed with this kind of broken-down cheerleader, is my thing. ~ Charli XCX

I have much to learn from my daughter Sofia. Her minimalism exposes my limitations: I'm too instinctive and operatic, I put too much heart into my work, I get lost sometimes in bizarre things - it's my Italian heritage. ~ Francis Ford Coppola

I felt that days, weeks, months, and years of my life were wasted by the removal of stuff. There were more important things I would rather have been doing. But I continued, and eventually, I felt lighter and freer than I had ever felt in the years of big houses with each room filled to the brim. ~ Lisa J. Shultz

Any half-awake materialist well knows - that which you hold holds you. ~ Tom Robbins

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit. ~ Hosea Ballou

There's a fine line between minimalism and not trying very hard. ~ Tom Pappalardo

We had to keep explaining things, backtracking and filling gaps. We realised our own conversations had evolved into a kind of shorthand, a tidy, neat little minimalism. Covering the whole canvas in broad obvious brushstrokes for outsiders felt like a waste of sounds, time and effort. Speaking with footnotes. ~ Steven Hall

WITHOUT GRACE, MINIMALISM IS ANOTHER METRIC FOR PERFECTION. Chasing ~ Erin Loechner

I'm a big believer in minimalism. Not materialist minimalism, although that's part of it, but time and energy minimalism. The body is given only so much energy a day. ~ James Altucher