“The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fall in Colorado 2012 {photo by Carrie Caverly}
Simple Quotes
Simple Sunday: Thoreau
“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward.”
– from “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau
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Simple Sunday: Geese
“Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important that television.”
- Aldo Leopold
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Simple Sunday
“Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something.”
- Carl Sagan
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Simple Sunday
“When every possible need is satisfied before we even have a chance to perceive and respond to it, creativity and resourcefulness can’t flourish. We become victims of the great disease of technological society — meaninglessness. … Besides damaging the human spirit, unquestioning dependence on machines is bad for the human body. Henry Fairlie, essayist for the Washington Post, analyzes it like this:
Simple Sunday
“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
~William Morris
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Simple Sunday
“To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter… to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring – these are some of the rewards of the simple life.”
~John Burroughs
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Simple Sunday
“The amount of electricity you use is directly proportionate to the long-term damage your lifestyle inflicts upon your ecology. Cultivate an outdoor life, rich in experience rather than gadgetry. Go outside and garden. Go for a walk. Stretch. Sing. Play an instrument. Write poetry. Tell jokes. Talk to your neighbors. Daydream. Hang out with dogs and cats. Watch birds, go swimming. Take a nap. Cook. Read. Play with children. Dance. Make. Love.”
– H.C. Flores, Food not Lawns
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Simple Sunday
“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
