You have identified your goal in life. You know what you want to do and when. You also understand how you set about achieving your ultimate goal. These three elements form the basis of your master plan. ‘What,’ ‘how’ and ‘when.’
The fourth element is, of course, ‘you.’ You are the only one who knows what you want to achieve and how you intend to do that. The ultimate success or failure of the plan is in your hands. One important secret of success is to keep the whole strategy and any short-term plans, simple.
Simplicity is a huge factor in the success of any venture. The more complicated the enterprise is, the more likely it is to fail. Achieving simplicity can be a short-term goal in itself, one that should make the success of the activity certain.
How to achieve simplicity is a skill in itself. There are several ways of approaching the issue of simplicity. First of all, you will need to decide what it is that you are trying to achieve. How is this currently achieved, or what is your plan to do it? Secondly, you need to examine that process and determine what can be taken away and still allow the desired result.
Next, consider the problem from every possible angle and see if there is a simpler way of doing the same job. Lastly, when you are doing a job, are you inclined to consider something you do as necessary when, in reality, it is not?
Simplifying a task does not mean doing an inferior job. Often it can lead to doing a better job. Take the example of a cluttered desk. Organizing the clutter is an excellent first step, then reducing it by removing what is not needed. Then ensure that everything on the desk has a purpose that you understand. You can then trust that what you need is there when you need it.
But I deal with this by meditating and by understanding I’ve been put on the planet to serve humanity. I have to remind myself to live simply and not overindulge, which is a constant battle in a material world.
Sandra Cisneros
You will save time by not searching or being distracted by some item that does not have a place on the desk. Having a tidy, purposeful desk will make you happier and more inclined to sit there and work.
If we now use the cluttered desk as a metaphor for a cluttered mind, we can see that simplicity in thinking can also make a person happier. A happier person is more inclined to be motivated and, therefore, more productive. Taking this further, if you rid your mind of negative thoughts, which don’t need to be there, positive thoughts can dominate.
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
Leo Tolstoy
By understanding what it is you want to do and how to go about the task will save you time and effort and avoid failure. Clarity follows simplicity, so an uncluttered mind will be able to think more clearly and make better and quicker decisions. Simplicity in thinking and understanding will lead to applying simple solutions to problems. Simple solutions are always the best.
Simplicity Quotes
Let’s stop telling each other how busy we are.
Unknown
There are two ways to be rich: One is by acquiring much, and the other is by desiring little.
Jackie French Koller
The more you have, the more you are occupied. The less you have, the more free you are.
Mother Teresa
Simplicity involves unburdening your life, and living more lightly with fewer distractions that interfere with a high quality life, as defined uniquely by each individual.
Linda Breen Pierce
The more simple we are, the more complete we become.
August Rodin
One of the advantages of being born in an affluent society is that if one has any intelligence at all, one will realize that having more and more won’t solve the problem, and happiness does not lie in possessions, or even relationships: The answer lies within ourselves. If we can’t find peace and happiness there, it’s not going to come from the outside.
Tenzin Palmo
To be richer, happier, and freer, all you need to do is want less.
Francine Jay
The intention of voluntary simplicity is not to dogmatically live with less. It’s a more demanding intention of living with balance. This is a middle way that moves between the extremes of poverty and indulgence.
Duane Elgin
It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.
William Of Occam
We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy.
Richard Foster
Slow down. Do less.
Maxime Lagacé
The trouble with simple living is that, though it can be joyful, rich, and creative, it isn’t simple.
Doris Janzen Longacre
A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?
Albert Einstein
Any half-awake materialist well knows – that which you hold holds you.
Tom Robbins
Men are not great or small because of their material possessions. They are great or small because of what they are.
James Cash Penney
The simplest things are often the truest.
Richard Bach
My greatest skill has been to want little.
Henry David Thoreau
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 Kushner
Getting rid of everything that doesn’t matter allows you to remember who you are. Simplicity doesn’t change who you are, it brings you back to who you are.
Courtney Carver
If one’s life is simple, contentment has to come. Simplicity is extremely important for happiness. Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have, is very vital: satisfaction with just enough food, clothing, and shelter to protect yourself from the elements.
The Dalai Lama
Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.
Will Rogers
Smile, breathe and go slowly.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.
Elise Boulding
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
Lin Yutang
You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.
Vernon Howard
Eliminate physical clutter. More importantly, eliminate spiritual clutter.
D.H. Mondfleur
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.
E.F. Schumacher
Small needs lead to a large life.
Unknown
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Eat, drink and love… the rest is not worth a nickel.
Lord Byron
Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves.
Edwin Way Teale
How many things are there which I do not want.
Socrates
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
Lin Yutang
The most important things in life aren’t things.
Kenneth Clarke
Less is more.
Mies Van Der Rohe
Order your soul. Reduce your wants.
Augustine of Hippo
Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.
Will Rogers
Simplicity is a state of mind.
Charles Wagner
Simplicity is an acquired taste. Mankind, left free, instinctively complicates life.
Katharine Fullerton Gerould
Simplicity is the end result of long, hard work, not the starting point.
Frederick Maitland
One can furnish a room very luxuriously by taking out furniture rather than putting it in.
Francis Jourdain
Simplicity is the trademark of genius.
Sravani Saha Nakhro
It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.
Bertrand Russell
Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.
Charles Warner
We go on multiplying our conveniences only to multiply our cares. We increase our possessions only to the enlargement of our anxieties.
Anna C. Brackett
Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius.
George Sand
Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris
Simplicity is the nature of great souls.
Papa Ramadas
You say, ‘If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.’ You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.
Charles Spurgeon
Simplicity is the peak of civilization.
Jessie Sampter
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
Leo Tolstoy
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau
Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
Henry David Thoreau
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
Socrates
Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face. Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer of the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge.
Baha’u’llah
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.
Henry David Beecher
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
Confucius
Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit experience and the last effort of genius.
George Sand
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Lao Tzu
My riches consist, not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants.
Joseph Brotherton
Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.
Lao Tzu
Live simply so that others may simply live.
Elizabeth Ann Seton
Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.
Isaac Newton
Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.
Hosea Ballou
To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one’s own in the midst of abundance.
Buddha
With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy.
Lope de Vega
Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
Dr. Seuss
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
Ernst F. Schumacher
Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.
Thomas a Kempis
That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
Steve Jobs
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, then this is the best season of your life.
Wu-Men
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
Winston Churchill
Poverty is my pride.
Muhammed
To be content, look backward on those who possess less than yourself, not forward on those who possess more. If this does not make you content, you don’t deserve to be happy.
Benjamin Franklin
If one had taken what is necessary to cover one’s needs and had left the rest to those who are in need, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, no one would be in need.
Saint Basil
Let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.
Henry David Thoreau
Contentment comes not so much from great wealth as from few wants.
Epictetus
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
Henry David Thoreau
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
Seneca
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Albert Einstein
Sell your possessions and give to the poor.
Jesus Christ
If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.
Albert Einstein
The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise.
John the Baptist
If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.
Oprah Winfrey
Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.
Epicurus
There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.
Warren Buffett
The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.
Socrates
It is not daily increase but daily decrease, hack away the unessential. The closer to the source, the less wastage there is.
Bruce Lee
Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
Lao Tzu
Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.
Steve Jobs
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
Confucious
Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to make something simple.
Richard Branson
To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one’s own in the midst of abundance.
Buddha
Don’t confuse having a career with having a life.
Hillary Clinton
The simplicity quotes that follow will help you pursue simple solutions to problems. By making things simpler, success will be assured. You will have achieved success thanks to these simplicity quotes.
