Robert Venturi Quotes

I like simplicity almost to the point of being monastic.

I like simplicity; I don't need luxury.

A taste for simplicity cannot endure for long.

I'm not an ascetic.

I really don't need luxury.

When you're young, the temptation is maybe to think, 'More is more.' But a lot of the time less is more.

The Quaker upbringing was not strict, but it was frugal. Extremely frugal. One was always encouraged to give away one's worldly goods.

I don't like a lot of frills and fusses.

The hardest thing is to take less when you can get more.

One of our theories is that one can offset this excessive compulsion toward the spectacular with a return to simplicity.

Hollywood could use less instead of more of everything.

Everything must be carried out in extreme sobriety.

I am convinced that there can be luxury in simplicity.

I've always had these morals I've sort of put on myself: that excess is bad. I used to be into Buddhism and stuff. I was vegetarian. I was all about shutting things out.

Shaker pieces were not to show off. One was not to waste energy to decorate.

I got simple tastes. Don't go in for all that flashy business.

It is only luxury and avarice that make poverty grievous to us; for it is a very small matter that does our business, and when we have provided against cold, hunger, and thirst, all the rest is but vanity and excess.

How many things I can do without!

It is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less. Strangest of all, it is a campaign not just against other people, but against ourselves.

Were I Diogenes, I would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the first had had nothing but small beer in it, and the second reeked claret.

I've always liked simplicity.

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

It is more rewarding to be complicit with scarcity than excess.

Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs.

My palate is simpler than it used to be. A young chef adds and adds and adds to the plate. As you get older, you start to take away.