31 verified quotes from 20 writers, c. 475 BC to 1916.
Quotes 1 to 16 of 31, page 1 of 2.
Thoreau went to Walden Pond to live deliberately and front only the essential facts of life, and his book is the backbone of this list. He is not alone: Marcus Aurelius advises occupying yourself with few things, and Franklin wanted everything in its place and every part of his business at its time.
Jerome K. Jerome turns the idea into a boat that should be packed light, and Grahame’s Water Rat into the pleasure of simply messing about in boats. Every quote below was matched word for word in the full text of the edition we link, with a note of ours on where it comes from.
What “verified” means, and what we leave out: How we verify.
With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow;—I have still joy in the midst of these things
Our note: Confucius on being content with little; he goes on to call ill-gotten riches a floating cloud.
Verified in the full text of The Analects on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #3330
…let silence be the general rule, or let only what is necessary be said, and in few words.
Our note: Part of a longer passage of plain rules for everyday conduct.
Verified in the full text of The Encheiridion on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #10661 · Collected in A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion
Occupy thyself with few things, says the philosopher, if thou wouldst be tranquil.
Our note: Book IV, quoting the philosopher Democritus.
Verified in the full text of Meditations on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #15877 · Collected in The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
…very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.
Our note: Book VII.
Verified in the full text of Meditations on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #15877 · Collected in The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness
Our note: The quatrain as FitzGerald revised it for his later editions; the first edition words it differently.
Verified in the full text of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #246
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.
Our note: Said by the famously long-winded Polonius, which is the joke.
Verified in the full text of Hamlet on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #100 · Collected in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Painted the same decade: Madonna and Child with Saints, Ludovico Carracci, 1607
Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
Our note: Franklin's note on "Order," one of his thirteen virtues.
Verified in the full text of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #148
Painted the same decade: The Sackville Children, John Hoppner, 1796
Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation
Our note: Silence, the second of Franklin's thirteen virtues.
Verified in the full text of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #148
Painted the same decade: Sebastián Martínez y Pérez (1747–1800), Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes), 1792
Human felicity is produc'd not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day
Our note: Franklin explaining why he bothered to write about small civic improvements.
Verified in the full text of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #148
Painted the same decade: The Sackville Children, John Hoppner, 1796
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness.
Our note: Mr. Micawber's famous rule for money, which he never manages to follow.
Verified in the full text of David Copperfield on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #766
Painted the same decade: Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine, Théodore Chassériau, 1851
"Elegant economy!" How naturally one falls back into the phraseology of Cranford!
Our note: The narrator's fond joke about the town's polite way of making do with little.
Verified in the full text of Cranford on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #394
Painted the same decade: Louis Gueymard (1822–1880) as Robert le Diable, Gustave Courbet, 1857
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Our note: Thoreau explains why he built a small cabin by Walden Pond and lived there for two years.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine, Théodore Chassériau, 1851
Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
Our note: Thoreau's case for cutting life down to what really matters.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Madame Frederic Breyer (Fanny Hélène Van Bruyssel, 1830–1894), Gustave Courbet, 1858
…a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.
Our note: Thoreau measures wealth by what we can do without.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Louis Gueymard (1822–1880) as Robert le Diable, Gustave Courbet, 1857
Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.
Our note: Thoreau describes his mornings at the pond.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Louis Gueymard (1822–1880) as Robert le Diable, Gustave Courbet, 1857
…the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
Our note: Thoreau's definition of cost, from the chapter "Economy."
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Madame Frederic Breyer (Fanny Hélène Van Bruyssel, 1830–1894), Gustave Courbet, 1858
We use Google Analytics to understand traffic. OK to enable analytics cookies?