Essentialism Quotes

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

Always bear this in mind, that very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.

Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.

Failure means a stripping away of the inessential.

All idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity.

Focusing is about saying No.

What makes Steve [Jobs'] methodology different from everyone else's is that he always believed the most important decisions you make are not the things you do, but the things you decide not to do. He's a minimalist.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!

Most of what we say and do is unnecessary: remove the superfluity, and you will have more time and less bother. So in every case one should prompt oneself: 'Is this, or is it not, something necessary?' And the removal of the unnecessary should apply not only to actions but to thoughts also: then no redundant actions either will follow.

I'm big on simplicity. I'm not too much on all the extra instruments.

Desire is the very essence of man.

It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

Good design is as little design as possible. Less, but better - because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

I don't put the focus on things that don't matter.

I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself.

Nationalism is spiritual and all-embracing, in the sense that it opens its arms to and spreads its wings over all those who have shared with the Arabs their history and have lived in the environment of their language and culture for generations, so that they have become Arab in thought and feeling. There is no fear that nationalism will clash with religion, for, like religion, it flows from the heart and issues from the will of God; they walk arm in arm, supporting each other, especially when religion represents the genius of the nationality and is in harmony with its nature.

I don't buy much. Almost buy nothing. I buy what I need, do it the easiest way possible.

Everything we need is already there. The challenge is letting go of all our stuff in the way.

The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity ... the ability to express the utmost with the minimum. It is the halfway cultivation that leads to ornamentation.

It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?

The design of everyday things is in great danger of becoming the design of superfluous, overloaded, unnecessary things.

What we really need is to realize how little we really need.

How many things I can do without!

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.

To think Being itself explicitly requires disregarding Being to the extent that it is only grounded and interpreted in terms of beings and for beings as their ground, as in all metaphysics.